An abstract ink painting by artist and calligrapher Obayashi Tento enclosed in the original signed wooden box dating from the mid century. Ink and light blue color on paper, in a silk border with mugiwara patterned ceramic rollers, The scroll measures 78.6 x 165 cm (31 x 65 inches) and is in overall excellent condition, with a few wrinkles along the outer edges of the painting.
Ōbayashi Tendō (also Tendōsai, Tento, 1900–1983) was a calligrapher and painter active in the Shōwa period, celebrated especially for his delicate, fine-script called a “grain-of-rice” artist. His public demonstrations became the stuff of legend: in one instance, clad in white tabi before the National Diet Building, he brushed the character for “dragon” across a sheet of paper measuring seventy-five tsubo (that is 150 Tatami mats, 248 square meters, roughly the size of a tennis court!). Contemporary newspaper accounts capture both the artistry and the spectacle of his appearances, which often unfolded against the backdrop of political debate, civic protest, or even the playful satire of talking monkeys and mountain ascetics in the press. Beyond the exuberance of these episodes, his work embodies a meticulous devotion to line and form, securing him a distinctive place among Shōwa-era calligraphers. This is visible in the News program found at the following link: https://www2.nhk.or.jp/archives/movies/?id=D0009182581_00000
