Overview
The first major retrospective to focus on the groundbreaking 20th-century painter and printmaker Yoshida Chizuko (1924–2017), a pioneering woman modernist in Japan, Yoshida Chizuko features approximately 100 works, many of which have never previously been exhibited, encompassing early paintings and sketches, rare monotypes, woodblock prints, and zinc-plate mixed media prints, in addition to archival material and ephemera. Nearly 80 of the works in the exhibition comprise a major planned acquisition from the Yoshida family estate, joining the Museum’s exceptional holdings of 20th-century Japanese prints that are among the most significant in the country.
Yoshida Chizuko traces the evolution of the artist’s full career, from avant-garde abstraction in the late 1940s and 1950s to neon-colored Op art and works which drew inspiration from commercial advertising in the 1960s and 1970s, to her late career, which was heavily influenced by the natural world. The exhibition situates her within the context of international modernist art and 20th-century Japanese printmaking, a medium that experienced enormous global popularity and commercial success in the postwar era. The presentation also explores the tensions inherent in Chizuko’s role as a woman artist in mid-century Japan and as a member of the well-known Yoshida family into which she married, with a tradition of artistry spanning four generations into the present day. Works on view illustrate the personal influences that shaped Chizuko’s work, including the loss of a beloved brother, formative years as a member of the artist Okamoto Tarō’s radical Night Society collective, and the later interplay between Chizuko’s work and that of her husband, Hodaka.
“We are honored to present this first major museum retrospective of Yoshida Chizuko’s remarkable career, which will offer visitors an in-depth look at her visionary practice and her profound impact on both 20th-century Japanese and modernist art,” said Brian Ferriso, Director and Chief Curator. “The upcoming acquisition of nearly 80 of her works underscores the Museum’s commitment to spotlighting underrepresented artists and uplifting diverse voices, and will contribute to continued scholarship and research.”
“A reexamination of Yoshida Chizuko’s legacy has been a long time coming,” said exhibition organizer and curator Jeannie Kenmotsu, Ph.D., Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Asian Art. “By bringing Chizuko into focus, we center the untold story of a radical woman artist gifted with a brilliant sense of color and pattern, who was incredibly but quietly prolific over six decades. Widely regarded as the most avant-garde member of the family, her career and legacy have often been overshadowed by the commercial success and recognition of her male relatives, including her father-in-law, Yoshida Hiroshi, and her husband, Yoshida Hodaka. The exhibition and publication will allow audiences for the first time to understand how her work evolved—transforming from the bold explorations of her youth to lyrical and evocative compositions of her later years. I hope audiences see Chizuko not just as a Japanese woman artist, and a member of the Yoshida family, but also as a modernist whose work challenges established ideas about international printmaking in the twentieth century.”
Alongside her creative practice, the exhibition explores Chizuko’s significant efforts in supporting fellow women artists, particularly her ten-year engagement with the Joryū Hanga Kyōkai, or the Women Printmakers Association, an organization she co-founded in Tokyo in 1956 that provided critical support for women in the graphic arts. Through this narrative, the exhibition illustrates the ways in which Chizuko established her creativity and innovation as an artist independent from her well-known family, and demonstrates her impact on a younger generation of women printmakers as well as her peers.
Yoshida Chizuko is accompanied by a catalogue featuring essays by exhibition curator Jeannie Kenmotsu; Noriko Kuwahara, Retired Associate Professor at Seitoku University, Chiba, Japan; Hollis Goodall, Retired Curator, of Japanese Art at Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Ayomi Yoshida, the artist’s daughter and practicing contemporary artist. In addition, the catalogue includes bilingual reference material encompassing a list of Chizuko’s major works and a timeline of her artistic activities, marking the first time this information has been compiled for scholarly purposes.
Yoshida Chizuko is organized and curated by Jeannie Kenmotsu, Ph.D., the Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Asian Art. This exhibition is made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.