NEW YORK, NY.- Scholten Japanese Art announced the gallery's most recent works by Chizuko Yoshida (1924-2017) received from the Yoshida Family Collection and available now on their website.

Before joining the Yoshida family by marriage to the younger son Hodaka, Chizuko Inoue lived a life immersed in the arts. From a young age she studied music, played the violin, and performed in competitive dance including tap, ballet and Japanese dances. After graduating from the Sato Girl's High School in Tokyo in 1941, Chizuko studied traditional Western-style realism including life drawing at the Hongo Art Institute, and oil painting privately in the studio of Kitaoka Fumio (1918-2007) who was also a woodblock printmaker. In the late 1940s, Chizuko joined a group of avant-garde artists who called themselves the Century Society (Seiki no kai) and eventually moved away from academic realism and began painting abstract compositions.

A Pioneer for Women’s Voices in Japanese Printmaking

In 1956, Chizuko co-founded the Joryu Hanga Kyokai (Women’s Printmakers Association), together with nine other printmakers including Minami Keiko (1911-2004), Iwami Reika (1927-2020), Enokido Maki (b. 1938), Shishido Tokuko (b. 1930), and Kobayashi Donge (b. 1926). Active through 1965, the group provided a crucial vehicle for talented female printmakers to showcase their work. From 1987 onward, Chizuko held solo and group exhibitions both in Japan and abroad.

Recognition and Major Commissions

In the mid-1980s Chizuko received large commissions from corporate patrons. A major construction company funded a series of butterfly-themed designs corresponding to the seasons. The designs were issued in limited editions of 100 numbered impressions and were dispersed through the corporation for display in various locations such as hotels and office buildings. As the entire editions were purchased by the company, Chizuko retained only 10 or 15 artist's proofs of each design, as such only proofs were ever available directly from the artist.

The following year in 1985 a newly established high-end mail order company commissioned a series of larger format butterfly and floral prints that were marketed as luxury collectibles, indicating that the editions were limited to only 20 to 40 available impressions, with Chizuko perhaps retaining the other half of the edition.

Photo-lithography with Zinc Plates and Woodblock Prints

Later in her career, Chizuko blended zinc-plate photoetching with traditional woodblock printing techniques. Chizuko contributed this work to the prestigious collaborative series, One Hundred Views of Tokyo, Message to the 21st Century, a decade-long project featuring 100 prints from 100 artists, which was conceived and published by the Japan Print Association starting in 1989.