Winter 2003/04 Exhibition
Yoshida Tōshi (1911–1995)
Rangoon
Woodblock print
Japan and Beyond:
The Yoshida Family Legacy in Japanese Woodblock Prints
Rotation 1: Dec. 2, 2003 – Jan. 31, 2004
Rotation 2: Feb. 3, 2004 – March 27, 2004
This winter, for the first time in its history, the Clark Center is pleased to present an exhibition devoted entirely to Japanese woodblock prints. This exhibition draws from the selection of over 200 modern woodblock prints by three generations of the Yoshida family and their students recently gifted to the Center by collector H. Ed Robison in memory of his beloved wife Ulrike Pietzner Robison.
Divided into two rotations with a total of over 80 prints, this exhibition is organized around the theme of "Nationalism and Internationalism" in the work of renowned 20th century print artist Yoshida Hiroshi and his eldest son Tōshi. Other Yoshida family artists appearing in the exhibition include Hiroshi's wife, Fujio, his second son, Hodaka, and his wife, Chizuko, Tōshi's youngest son, Tsukasa, and Hiroshi's granddaughter, Ayomi. Prints by American artists Carol Jessen, Ann Lehman, and Micah Schwaberow, who studied with Tōshi, complete the list of works to be exhibited.
Yoshida Chizuko (b. 1924)
Jazz
Woodblock print
Yoshida Hiroshi began his career as a painter but later specialized in woodblock prints combining his painter's eye for color with inventive techniques all within the format of a woodblock print. His dedication to this distinctly Japanese medium proved the beginning of a great family legacy in the history of Japanese print-making that continues even today in the work of Japanese and non-Japanese artists alike.
The first rotation of this exhibition addressed the treatment of Japanese subjects by Hiroshi and his successors, and bore witness to the subtle Nationalism of these artists in their quiet, peaceful images of traditional and rural Japan produced during periods of rapid and inescapable modernization and westernization.
In this second rotation, we turn our attention instead to these same artists' exploration of landscapes, still lifes, and figure studies based on their observations and experiences abroad, featuring images of Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa. The successive generations of Yoshida artists broadened their horizons through careful study and absorption of things foreign followed by meticulous incorporation into their individual aesthetics and approaches to the printing process. In the mid-1920s, when Yoshida Hiroshi and his wife Fujio traveled to the United States, they soon realized that their oil and watercolor paintings no longer held the same appeal for western collectors, but the few woodblock prints that Hiroshi had produced were immediate successes. Thus, even the impetus for the Yoshida family to turn to print making was, in a sense, international.
Micah Schwaberow (b. 1948)
Gathering Stones
Woodblock print
Consummate travelers, Hiroshi and Fujio passed their love of exotic and foreign places on to their sons. The sights, sounds and adventures that all Yoshida family artists experienced while abroad were a vibrant source of inspiration for their prints. Hiroshi's scenes of Manchuria and Korea created in the dawn of World War II, Tōshi's genre scenes from the United States and South America, and Hodaka's spiritually charged works based on South American and Native American religious beliefs are all examples of such internationalism. Yoshida Ayomi's primary attention to the process of creating woodblock prints as opposed to the image created is an example of Western art theory at play in a traditional Eastern format.
As the Yoshida family turned their attention to and from Japan for inspiration, a number of American students of the Yoshida Hanga Academy came to draw upon scenes of Japan for their art. Prints by Micah Schwaberow and Carol Jessen illustrate this "reverse internationalism."
This inaugural exhibition dedicated to woodblock prints is guest curated by Dr. Kendall H. Brown, Professor of Asian Art at California State University, Long Beach, and Quyen Le, graduate student at CSULB.
Gallery hours: Tuesday through Saturday 1 – 5 pm. Closed on national holidays and during the month of August.
Admission: $5 for adults, $3 for students with valid ID. Children 12 and under free.
Weekly docent tours are held Saturdays at 1 pm and guided group tours can be arranged by calling the Center in advance at (559) 582-4915.