Fujio Yoshida: Flowering Kale (SOLD)
Artist: Fujio Yoshida 吉田ふじを (1887-1987) Title: Flowering Kale
Date: 1953-54
Sinuous, bold and abstract: without the title, we would be a loss as exactly what we might be seeing through the artist’s eyes. The viewer tries to orient themselves in space and perspective after reading the title; what part(s) of this purple kale are we looking at? Best to just relax and feel the surge of energy running through the leaves, and to appreciate the mystery of plants and their power. A strong and appreciated design from this set of twelve works that the artist based on her own paintings.
Fujio Yoshida was the wife of Hiroshi Yoshida, and this series of semi-abstracted floral works from the 1950s show her final artistic flowering, following decades spent focusing on her family instead of her art. Most of the works from this series were printed by the artist herself, but this work seems to be one that was produced in collaboration with professional carvers and printers. This dealer appreciates the expertise of these professionals and their contribution to the success of the design.
When Fujio Yoshida married Hiroshi Yoshida in 1906, she also founded a female lineage of artists, something exceptional and atypical in Japan, where male printmaking lineages were certainly the norm.
Oliver Statler in 1956 wrote this about her: “She has been an active artist all of her life, managing ot exhibit even in the years when she relegated art to a hobby in order to raiser her children, but only in recent years has she seriously tackled prints” She was trained as and became a highly skilled western-style painter, accomplished in pencil drawing, watercolor and oil painting. As Laura Allen notes in “A Japanese Legacy: Four Generations of Yoshida Family Artists” (page 154): “From a historical perspective, she was a trailblazer, one of the few women in Japan to enter the male-dominated arena of early Western-style painting”. Although her early style was closely aligned with her famous husband Hiroshi’s, she became more and more daring in terms of creating abstract instead of realistic compositions following his passing in 1950. Fujio’s artistic training began early, at about age eight. When she was twelve she was enrolled in Hiroshi’s own alma mater, the Fudosha, where she trained in western-style painting. Fujio traveled with Hiroshi (who at that time was her adopted brother) to the United states, and was able to garner much positive press and sell quite a few of her watercolor paintings. After their return to Japan in 1907 as husband and wife, Hiroshi continued to encourage her to paint, leading her to exhibit three paintings at the first Bunten. In 1910 she was awarded an honorable mention for one of her paintings, Called “Spirit Grove”. In 1911, she stepped away from focusing on painting to focus on raising her children, which at that time included Toshi Yoshida, who had contracted polio. She did not return to printmaking until after the passing of Hiroshi in 1950, after a hiatus of almost 30 years. She based most of her prints on her abstract oil paintings.
Her daughter Chizuko (1924-2017) and granddaughter Ayomi (born 1958) became talented printmakers whose recognition and acclaim continue to grow. Ayomi’s works have recently been acquired by the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam; she was commissioned to create a site-specific installation there in 2024. The Museum also just concluded in October of 2024 an exhibition of all three generations of the Yoshida female printmakers.
Condition: Excellent impression, color and condition. Very small hinging remnants, verso. Dimensions: 40 x 27 cm
Publisher: Self-published Signature: Fujio Yoshida (in pencil, bottom right). Also titled "Flowering Kale" and dated "1954" in pencil by the artist. It is also dated in the block, left margin, 1-9-5-3 hitsu.
References: Oliver Statler, Modern Japanese Prints: An Art Reborn, 1959, pp. 171-172; Ogura Tadao, Chronological History, in Yoshida Hiroshi zenhangashu (The Complete Woodblock Prints of Hiroshi Yoshida), 1987, pp. 178-183; Catalogue of Collections, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 1993, p. 262, no. 2525; Laura W. Allen, ed., A Japanese Legacy: Four Generations of Yoshida Family Artists, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2002, pp. 154-159; p. 169, cat. no. 120; Yoshida Fujio: A Painter of Radiance, Fuchu Art Museum and Fukuoka Art Museum, 2002, p. 100, no. 147(print); p. 91, no. 131 (Flower [Rhythm] 1951) Minneapolis Institute of Art, accession no. 2013.29.529; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, recently acquired an impression of this work from the Yoshida Family Collection; Art Institute of Chicago.
SKU: YSF010