Lot Essay
Another painting in ink and colors of a Goddess was sold in these Rooms April 26, 1995, lot 415
Details
MUNAKATA SHIKO (1903-1975)
Goddess
Signed Munakata haisha and sealed Nanpo no in--ink and colors on paper, framed and glazed, 64.6 x 32.7cm.
Munakata Shiko was born in Aomori Prefecture to a blacksmith in whose shop he worked as a young man. Though he lived elsewhere in Japan, Munakata was devoted to the Aomori region and adopted the field chrysanthemum of that countryside and pine needles, used in his father's smith, as symbols he drew on many of his works.
At the age of nineteen under the sway of Van Gogh in attire and style of painting, Munakata began painting outdoors. Even at this early place in his career Munakata had gathered a group of young artists around him to form a cultural organization that exhibited the work of its members.
Munakata went to Tokyo in 1924 to study oil painting and was accepted into the Teiten Western-style painting exhibition of 1928. While he was earning a modest reputation for his work, Munakata began to doubt the legitimacy of oil-paint, a foreign convention, as a medium for a Japanese artist. At the same time he was introduced to woodblock printing by Hiratsuka Un'ichi (b. 1895) and started to make prints and paintings in traditional Japanese media with principally Buddhist themes.
The first important patron of the artist was Yanagi Soetsu (1889-1961), artist, critic and founder of the Japanese Crafts Movement. In 1936 Yanagi purchased a set of Munakata's prints for the new Japanese Folk Art Museum (Nihon Mingei-kan). Munakata himself founded in 1959 the Nihon Hangakai, an association of printmakers. He was awarded the Order of Cultural Merit in 1970.
Goddess
Signed Munakata haisha and sealed Nanpo no in--ink and colors on paper, framed and glazed, 64.6 x 32.7cm.
Munakata Shiko was born in Aomori Prefecture to a blacksmith in whose shop he worked as a young man. Though he lived elsewhere in Japan, Munakata was devoted to the Aomori region and adopted the field chrysanthemum of that countryside and pine needles, used in his father's smith, as symbols he drew on many of his works.
At the age of nineteen under the sway of Van Gogh in attire and style of painting, Munakata began painting outdoors. Even at this early place in his career Munakata had gathered a group of young artists around him to form a cultural organization that exhibited the work of its members.
Munakata went to Tokyo in 1924 to study oil painting and was accepted into the Teiten Western-style painting exhibition of 1928. While he was earning a modest reputation for his work, Munakata began to doubt the legitimacy of oil-paint, a foreign convention, as a medium for a Japanese artist. At the same time he was introduced to woodblock printing by Hiratsuka Un'ichi (b. 1895) and started to make prints and paintings in traditional Japanese media with principally Buddhist themes.
The first important patron of the artist was Yanagi Soetsu (1889-1961), artist, critic and founder of the Japanese Crafts Movement. In 1936 Yanagi purchased a set of Munakata's prints for the new Japanese Folk Art Museum (Nihon Mingei-kan). Munakata himself founded in 1959 the Nihon Hangakai, an association of printmakers. He was awarded the Order of Cultural Merit in 1970.