Chinese Lithograph - Wrestling/Fighting Cats - HELP with ID

mjm579 · Jun 24, 2014

I won this lithograph at a silent auction at one of my frequented thrift stores. It was $60! I generally wouldn't pay that much for any one thing, but I just LOVED this piece. A friend of mine speaks Chinese and he said it has Chinese characters. It feels more Japanese to me, but I know the styles can often be borrowed.

vpnavy · Jun 25, 2014

Nice win. Thanks for sharing...

texasred777 · Jun 25, 2014

Interesting purchase. Very thought provoking. I can't make up my mind just what is going on between the two cats. If you find more info on this, please share it with us.

mjm579 · Jun 26, 2014

texasred777 said:
Interesting purchase. Very thought provoking. I can't make up my mind just what is going on between the two cats. If you find more info on this, please share it with us.

Similarly - "can't make up my mind" is why I bought it! Hangs in my bedroom (symbolic?) (LOL)

krazyace · Jun 26, 2014

brings to my mind yin yang.

mjm579 · Jun 27, 2014

krazyace said:
brings to my mind yin yang.

I thought the same exact thing. It's definitely a conversation piece.

ivan salis · Jun 27, 2014

the Japanese in many cases "borrowed" their style and art from the much older Chinese culture.

mjm579 · Jun 27, 2014

ivan salis said:
the Japanese in many cases "borrowed" their style and art from the much older Chinese culture.

That's what my Chinese colleague said as well.

Yang Hao · Feb 23, 2015

It's Chinese because of the stamp at the bottom is in the chinese caligraphy style xiao zhuan 小篆

mjm579 · Feb 23, 2015

Yang Hao said:
It's Chinese because of the stamp at the bottom is in the chinese caligraphy style xiao zhuan 小篆

Thank you!

Drmad7 · Feb 24, 2015

Welcome Yang Hao!! I suspect we will hitting you up with various questions. Glad you are here!!

scaupus · Mar 18, 2015

how do you know its a lithograph? Is it screened? If not, I would think it's an ink painting. An expert Chinese painter can dash one off like this in a few minutes....well, maybe a few more minutes, but a lot faster than you would imagine.

mjm579 · Mar 21, 2015

scaupus said:
how do you know its a lithograph? Is it screened? If not, I would think it's an ink painting. An expert Chinese painter can dash one off like this in a few minutes....well, maybe a few more minutes, but a lot faster than you would imagine.

It is numbered though hard to see in this pic.

Red-Coat · Jan 8, 2024

Just doing a bit of tidying up on some older threads, mainly for the benefit of anyone searching the site for information.

Very nice.

The seal stamp may well be Chinese but the artist was Japanese, or rather Japanese-American. It’s additionally signed in English: “Hideo Date”.

https://auction.housingworks.org/product/260159

Hideo Date (January 5, 1907 – January 6, 2005) was a Japanese-born American painter active from the 1930s to the 1980s, known for combining elements of Japanese nihonga with American syncromism. A prominent figure in the pre-World War II Los Angeles art scene, his career was interrupted by the internment of Japanese Americans. Although he continued to paint for decades after the war, Date's work remained largely ignored until he was rediscovered by a younger generation of artists and curators in the 1990s. [Ref: Wikipedia]