Canvas or Framed Poster, the Right Choice for Kawano

Kawano's flat pastel woodblocks survive both formats, but they read differently on each surface. Texture, glare, wall size and cost decide the choice, not the artist's style alone.

Auvrique Editorial · Fine Art Editions

The short answer

In the canvas vs framed poster choice for Kaoru Kawano, pick a framed poster below about 60 cm or on a tight budget, since it keeps his outlines crisp and usually costs less. Pick canvas above roughly 70 cm or opposite a window, where its frameless surface gives his flat pastels more presence. Both suit his work. Wall size, light and price decide.

What Kawano's Prints Ask of a Surface

Kaoru Kawano worked as a printmaker in Japan through the middle decades of the twentieth century, part of the sōsaku-hanga movement in which artists carved and printed their own blocks. His designs use flat planes of color, soft pastels and clean outlines, often with children, birds and flowers as subjects. That flatness is the whole issue here. Canvas has a woven texture that catches light across the surface. Paper behind glass stays perfectly flat. Both can carry his work. They do not read the same way on a wall.

Texture cuts both ways with this artist. The weave of a canvas adds a soft grain to those pastel fields, which suits the gentle mood of his figures. It also blurs his outlines a little, and outline does real work in a woodblock. A framed poster keeps the hard edge of the carved line, closer to how the original print presents behind glass. His palette runs pale, so wall color shifts it. The note on Kawano against warm and cool rooms covers that in detail.

Kaoru Kawano worked as a printmaker in Japan through the middle decades of the twentieth century, part of the sōsaku-hanga movement in which artists carved and printed

From the Auvrique collection

Made to order · Every size