The Tree after Hiroshige
1984
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
color aquatint, softground and hardground etching, and drypoint on Arches paper
Dimensions
image: 61 x 91.4 cm (24 x 36 in.) sheet: 81.3 x 108.9 cm (32 x 42 7/8 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Kathan Brown
Accession Number
1998.40.472
Art Historical Context
Pat Steir's *The Tree after Hirosh* (1984) is a striking homage to the 19th-century Japanese master Utagawa Hirosh, whose ukiyo-e woodblock revolutionized landscape depiction with their poetic sensitivity to nature. Steir, a prominent American artist known for her monumental abstract paintings and prints that blend Eastern and Western influences, reinterprets Hiroshige's iconic tree—evoking transient beauty and seasonal change—through a contemporary lens. Created at Crown Point Press (as suggested by donor Kathan Brown, its founder), this work bridges traditional Japanese aesthetics with moder...
About the Artist
Pat Steir
Pat Steir, born Iris Patricia Sukoneck on April 10, 1938, in Newark, New Jersey, to a Russian-Jewish immigrant family, knew from age five that she wanted to be an artist or poet. The eldest daughter of a father who worked in art-adjacent trades like silk-screening and neon sign design, she frequented the Philadelphia Museum of Art as a child. Steir studied at Pratt Institute from 1956 to 1958, the...