SIGNED DAIJU, TAISHO/SHOWA PERIOD (CIRCA 1920-40)

One of the leading metal artists of twentieth-century Japan, Tsuda Shinobu (1875-1946, art-name Daiju) was born in Chiba Prefecture and graduated from Tokyo Art School in 1900, becoming an assistant professor there two years later. From 1923 to 1926 he was commissioned by the Monbusho [Ministry of Education] to travel extensively in America and Europe and study bronzecasting and decorative metalworking techniques, also serving on the adjudicating committee for the 1925 Paris Art Deco exhibition. A regular if intermittent exhibitor and panel member at the official Teiten exhibition and its successors, he often showed studies of birds, including an owl in 1926 (his first contribution to the Teiten) and a pair of penguins in 1927, the first year in which the Teiten included a craft section, largely thanks to Tsuda's persuasive efforts. He was appointed to the Teikoku Bijutsukai [Imperial Academy] in 1935.1 For further examples of Tsuda's work in the Metal Art Museum Hikarinotani, Chiba Prefecture refer to www.jade.dti.ne.jp/~mam/tuda.html.

1 Nitten Hensan Iinkai [ed.], Nittenshi [A history of the Nitten exhibition] (Tokyo, 1983), vol. 8, pp. 259, 477; for a photograph of the artist at work, taken from the Asahigraph of 3 October 1928, see p. 492