Yoshida Chizuko

Overview

The first major museum retrospective to focus on the groundbreaking 20th-century painter and printmaker Yoshida Chizuko (1924–2017), a pioneering woman modernist in Japan. Opening September 27, 2025, Yoshida Chizuko features over 100 works, many of which have never previously been exhibited, encompassing early oil paintings, rare monotypes, woodblock prints, lithographs, and zinc-plate mixed media prints, in addition to archival material and ephemera. Many 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 illusionistic op art and neon-colored photoetchings 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 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. “The upcoming acquisition 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 visitors 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 recognizes Chizuko’s significant efforts in supporting fellow women artists, particularly her ten-year engagement with the Joryū Hanga Kai, or the Women’s Print Association, an organization she co-founded in Tokyo in 1956 that provided critical support for women in the graphic arts for a decade. 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 range of public programs including an opening lecture (September 28) by exhibition curator Jeannie Kenmotsu; a Japanese printmaking demonstration for Free First Thursday (October 2); and a daylong symposium (October 25) offering expanded context for the exhibition and for Yoshida Chizuko’s work during her lifetime. In addition, the Museum offers visitors a free audio guide on the Bloomberg Connects app featuring commentary by curator Jeannie Kenmotsu, guest scholars, and the artist’s daughter Ayomi Yoshida. The guide will reflect on Chizuko’s six-decade career with personal stories, historical context, and artistic insights. It will offer visitors a deeper connection to Yoshida’s journey as a pioneering woman modernist in Japan. 

Forthcoming in 2026, the Yoshida Chizuko catalogue will feature essays by exhibition curator Jeannie Kenmotsu; Noriko Kuwahara, Retired 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. 

Related events

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.