Sadao Watanabe was a Japanese artist best known for his prints that meld biblical imagery with the traditional Japanese folk art known as mingei. Watanabe's work portrays the Christian gospel with a distinctive use of crumpled wet paper mixed with mineral pigments suspended in soy milk, known as katazome. “I would most like to see them hanging where people ordinarily gather,” the artist said of his work. “Because Jesus brought the gospel for the people.” Born on July 7, 1913 in Tokyo, Japan, his parents died when he was 10. Now an orphan, Watanabe was invited to church by a neighbor, an event that changed the course of his life. During his adolescence, he worked as an apprentice in a fabric dyeing shop under the renowned textile artist Keisuke Serizawa. Today, the artist’s work has been internationally recognized, with his works in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the National Museum of Art in Tokyo. The artist died on January 8, 1996 in Tokyo, Japan.