Section 3 (woodblock prints)

In 1936, Kakunen initiated a collaboration with the print publisher Watanabe Shozaburo (1885–1962) to produce the first of four designs issued in the subsequent five years: Night Mist Over San Francisco City Hall in 1936; Golden Gate Bridge in Fog in 1937; Carmel Highland at Twilight in 1938 (which depicts the meditation hut belonging to a beloved patron, Mrs. Munsell); and Parrot on a Camellia Branch in 1940. Remarkably, Kakunen retained the copyright on all four prints, which may represent the only time that Watanabe relinquished such control to an artist. After the war, Kakunen did not continue to publish with Watanabe, and the small pile of paintings and prints still held by the family may reflect a diminished interest in promoting his own work. Sadly, the four beautiful prints that he produced suggests that he could have been, should have been, the American shin hanga artist of his time.