Peacock Ohara by Pública Rework: Two Pictures, One Hand

Peacock Ohara by Pública Rework is an art print of a white peacock, tail fully fanned, standing alone on a field of deep green. It is the quietest bird in the NOKUKO collection, and it earns that quiet by giving up nearly every colour a peacock is known for.

Peacock Ohara is an art print by Pública Rework, built from two works by the Japanese artist Ohara Koson: “Peacock” and “Chrysanthemums”, both made between 1925 and 1936. It is drawn in the Shin-Hanga style and printed on Fine Art Freja paper at 265 g. Two sizes are available, 30x40 cm and 50x70 cm.

A White Peacock Against a Field of Green

The bird in this print is white, not blue. Its tail opens into an almost perfect circle, and the eye spots that would normally burn blue and gold are drawn instead as pale open rings, closer to seed heads than to eyes. The green behind the fan lifts a shade, as though the bird were standing in its own light. Only three small notes of colour survive: a blue crest, a coral beak and coral legs.

Everything else is restraint. The breast is a fine scale pattern, each feather outlined rather than filled. Low on the left a stream runs in a few pale parallel lines and then stops. The rest of the sheet is green, deepest at the edges and grainy enough that the paper reads through it. Most of the picture is empty, and the emptiness is doing the work.

Two Koson Pictures Brought Into One Print

Peacock Ohara is a rework, not a reproduction. Pública Rework took the peacock from Ohara Koson’s “Peacock” and set it with an element drawn from a second Koson picture, “Chrysanthemums”. Both originals were made between 1925 and 1936, in the Shin-Hanga style, the early twentieth century revival of Japanese woodblock printing in which Koson worked.

Most Pública Rework prints put two different artists in the same frame. This one keeps to a single hand. The genre it belongs to is kacho-e, the Japanese bird and flower picture, where a bird is rarely left on its own. Borrowing from a second Koson work is less an invention than a completion.

The artist’s mark from the original illustration stays where it has always been, low on the right, a line of signature beside a small red seal, printed at the same weight as everything else.

If the idea of an old picture carried forward rather than copied appeals to you, Inspiration Cassatt by Pública Rework asks the same question of a Mary Cassatt painting. Peacock Ohara itself was first introduced in 2022, when Pública Rework arrived at NOKUKO.

A Print That Settles a Wall Rather Than Competing for It

Peacock Ohara suits a wall that already has things happening around it. The green is dark enough to read as a near neutral, which is why it sits easily beside wood, pale paint and a plant or two, and why the white of the bird stays the one bright thing in the frame.

The print is produced on Fine Art Freja paper at 265 g, which matters more here than it usually does. Almost the whole sheet is one long gradation of green, and light paper turns gradations into stripes. Two sizes are offered, 30x40 cm and 50x70 cm. Frames in the photographs are shown to illustrate and are not included.

A peacock fans its tail to be seen. This one is fanning to nobody, in an empty field, beside a stream reduced to a few pale lines.

That restraint is close to a century old now and it has not dated. Hang it somewhere you pass often and it keeps returning the same small pause.

About Peacock Ohara by Pública Rework

What paper is Peacock Ohara printed on?
It is printed on Fine Art Freja paper at 265 g, the heavier art paper NOKUKO uses for illustration prints. It holds the long green gradation behind the bird without breaking it into bands.

What sizes does Peacock Ohara come in?
Two sizes, 30x40 cm and 50x70 cm. Both keep the same composition, with the fanned tail high in the frame and the stream low on the left.

Does Peacock Ohara come in different colourways or editions?
No. There is one version of this print, offered in the two sizes. The artist’s mark from the original illustration appears on every copy.

Is Peacock Ohara a reproduction of an Ohara Koson print?
No. It is a rework by Pública Rework, drawing on two separate Koson pictures, “Peacock” and “Chrysanthemums”, and it is available from NOKUKO with free worldwide shipping on orders over €120.

Written by NOKUKO.