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One sheet This vintage Hokkaido tourism poster features a vibrant, stylised painting of a massive red clover blooming over a rolling green pasture filled with wild horses. Produced by the Sapporo Railway Management Bureau (as seen in the kanji at the bottom edge), it highlights the scenic, pastoral landscape of Japan's northern island.
The artist behind this iconic poster is Kenichi Kuriyagawa (1911–1999).
Widely celebrated as the "father of Hokkaido design," Kuriyagawa was a self-taught painter and graphic designer. He spent his early career as an apprentice cinema sign painter, a background that heavily influenced the dramatic scale, lighting, and cinematic framing seen in his work.
Kuriyagawa became renowned for his Hokkaido-themed travel advertisements. His work captured the natural beauty of the island and elevated regional Japanese design on the global stage, even representing Japan with an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York in 1956 |
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