Lot Essay
The son of a Kyoto dyer, he started to study painting under Kishi Chikudo (1826-1897) at the age of twelve, entering the atelier of the great Takeuchi Seiho (1864-1942) after Chikudo's death. He won a prize at the first Bunten exhibition in 1907 and from 1909 started teaching at the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts as well as in his own private painting school. From 1914 he began to suffer from a debilitating illness which restricted his output for a decade but by 1924 he had recovered sufficiently to accept another teaching position in Kyoto (see 1-2 below).
This painting was one of two works by Goun shown at the major exhibition of contemporary Japanese art organised by the French and Japanese governments in 1929, and is reproduced in the commemorative catalogue published in Tokyo later in the same year (see 3 below).
1. Conant, E.P.: Nihonga, Transcending the Past: Japanese-Style Painting, 1868-1968 (St. Louis, 1995), p. 316.
2. Eliseev, Serge, La Peinture Contemporaine au Japon (Paris, 1923), p. 72-73 and pl. XXXIV. This study was published to mark an exhibition of contemporary Japanese painting held at the Grand Palais in May-July 1922.
3. Musee du Jeu de Paume (Jardin des Tuileries), Exposition d'art japonais (Ecole classique contemporaine) (Exhibition catalogue, Paris, 1 June-25 July 1929; Tokyo 1929), cat. no. 113 and pl. 67 (this lot), cat. no.114 and pl. 103 (another painting by Goun).
This painting was one of two works by Goun shown at the major exhibition of contemporary Japanese art organised by the French and Japanese governments in 1929, and is reproduced in the commemorative catalogue published in Tokyo later in the same year (see 3 below).
1. Conant, E.P.: Nihonga, Transcending the Past: Japanese-Style Painting, 1868-1968 (St. Louis, 1995), p. 316.
2. Eliseev, Serge, La Peinture Contemporaine au Japon (Paris, 1923), p. 72-73 and pl. XXXIV. This study was published to mark an exhibition of contemporary Japanese painting held at the Grand Palais in May-July 1922.
3. Musee du Jeu de Paume (Jardin des Tuileries), Exposition d'art japonais (Ecole classique contemporaine) (Exhibition catalogue, Paris, 1 June-25 July 1929; Tokyo 1929), cat. no. 113 and pl. 67 (this lot), cat. no.114 and pl. 103 (another painting by Goun).