数量限定オンライン販売
毎日AM10時～
LINEお友だち限定
ご購入は公式LINEから。
GALLERY
Our encounter with mountain printmaker, Mr. Kazuyoshi Otani
In the spring of 2019, we embarked on the development of confections and a brand, with the goal of “creating quintessential Hokkaido sweets.” Our keywords at the time were “mountain” and “skiing.” As we searched for images that evoked snow and mountains and fit with our keywords, we discovered Mr. Otani’s print which graced the cover of Alp magazine.
By chance, we also learned about the Northern Alps Museum of Art in Hokkaido. After speaking with the museum’s director, Mr. Takeshi Yamazaki, we were introduced to Mr. Otani’s family.
As the COVID-19 pandemic led to a sharp decline in travelers, we decided to start anew, pivoting from the original “quintessential Hokkaido sweets” to “quintessential winter sweets.” Despite this change, Mr. Otani’s prints—depicting not specific mountains, but those from memory—continued to embody the vision we sought to convey.
We would like to express our gratitude to Director Yamazaki of the Northern Alps Museum of Art, and extend our appreciation and tribute to Mr. Otani’s family for graciously granting us permission to use his works, and above all, to Mr. Otani himself.
Kazuyoshi Otani（1933-2014）
Born in Tokyo in 1933, Mr. Otani graduated from the Department of Spanish Studies at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies in 1957. After working at a general trading company, he became a freelance printmaker in 1996, following in the footsteps of Umetaro Azechi. He has published cover art, illustrations, and essays in Japanese magazines, such as Alp, Meinberg, Mountains and Valleys, Kokoro, and GAKUJIN.
From the 1980s onward, he held solo and joint exhibitions nearly every year. He also authored books including Fragments of the Mountains, Cartes Postales Des, and Divertissement of the Wind, and co-authored The ABCs of Mountains and Unforgettable Mountains. Additionally, he has also made numerous designs and illustrations for mountain-related books.
