Hiroshi Yoshida

Background

Yoshida was born on September 19, 1876, in Kurume, Fukuoka, Japan. Hiroshi Yoshida was the second son of Ueda Tsukane, a schoolteacher from an old samurai family.

Education

Hiroshi Yoshida became close to his art teacher Kasaburo Yoshida, and the older man adopted him and moved him to a new city in 1891. Hiroshi took his teacher's surname. In 1893 Yoshida went to Kyoto to study painting under Tamura Shoryu, a well-known teacher of western style painting; the following year he moved to Tokyo to join Koyama Shotaro’s Fudosha private school for another three years.

Career

Yoshida held his first American exhibition at Detroit Museum of Art (the present-day Detroit Institute of Arts) in 1899. Then he travelled to Boston, Washington, D.C., Rhode Island, Providence. The artist successfully sold his watercolours in the United States.

In 1902 Hiroshi Yoshida helped reorganize the Meiji Fine Arts Society as the Taiheiyo-Gakai (Pacific Painting Association) for which he suggested the name. During 1903-1907 he was travelling across the United States, Europe and North Africa, accompanied by his stepsister and fellow-artist Fujio.

From then until 1920 he became a very successful painter in oils and watercolour in the light, airy style Yoshida had learned in the West, but his independent spirit led him into many quarrels with the artistic establishment in Japan. That same year Hiroshi Yoshida displayed his first woodcut at the Watanabe Print Workshop, which was organized by Watanabe Shōzaburō, publisher and advocate of the shin-hanga movement. However, Hiroshi Yoshida’s collaboration with Watanabe was short-lived partly due to the Great Kanto earthquake on September 1, 1923.

Soon after, he left Japan for the United States once again to raise funds for himself and for others; Hiroshi Yoshida toured through the western part of the United States and realized that good prints were eagerly sought after in North America. On his return, he set up his own establishment to produce his designs in print form.

In 1925 Yoshida hired a group of professional carvers and printers, and established his own studio. High-quality prints were made under Yoshida's close supervision. Plenty of his prints depicted foreign landscapes and subjects, including the United States and Canada, Europe, Egypt, India, Korea and China.

In 1938 the artist went on the first of three trips to China as an official war artist. He was the key Japanese organizer of the Toledo Exhibitions in 1930 and 1936. As a result, many of his prints were included: nine were presented in the first and sixty-six in the second. Those exhibitions increased his popularity in the United States and he became widely collected there.

Yoshida's orientation towards a Western audience was shown in the publication of the book Japanese Woodblock Printing in 1939; it was published in English. Hiroshi Yoshida designed his last print in 1946 but continued to paint. At the age of 73, Yoshida took his last sketching trip to Izu and Nagaoka and painted his last artworks The Sea of Western Izu and The Mountains of Izu.

Achievements

• Hiroshi Yoshida is regarded as one of the most outstanding artists of the shin-hanga style. Yoshida was also well-known for his superb landscape prints.
  
  Among his major artworks are the following: The Cherry Tree in Kawagoe, Hirosaki Castle, Market in Mukden, Arashiyama, Avenue of Cherry Trees, Icho in Autumn, Garden in Summer, etc.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Complete Woodblock Prints of Yoshida Hiroshi

    (English and Japanese edition.)

    1939

• painting

  • Market in Mukden

  • Obatan Parrot

  • Hirosaki Castle

  • Icho in Autumn

  • A Garden in Okayama

  • Avenue of Cherry Trees

  • Fujiyama from Okitsu

  • Hayase

  • Breithorn

  • In a Temple Yard

  • Chion-in Temple Gate

  • Arashiyama

  • The Cherry Tree in Kawagoe

  • Nabeshima

  • A Garden by Biwa Lake

  • Ghat in Benares

  • In the Botanical Garden

  • Yozakura in Rain

  • Above the Clouds

  • Sankeien

  • Garden in Summer

  • Glittering Sea

  • Fishes of Honolulu

  • Goshikibara

  • Comprising two oban yoko-e and two oban tate-e prints

  • Tairyo

  • Fuji san from Yamanaka

  • Chikugo River

  • Fujiyama from Funatsu

  • Small Town in Chigoku

  • Three Little Islands

  • Boats, Morning

  • Sailing Boats, Night

  • Sailing Boats, Forenoon

  • Shiohara Mountain River

Connections

Hiroshi Yoshida married Kasaburo Yoshida's daughter Fujio, who was also a painter. The couple gave birth to two children, Tōshi and Hodaka, both became print artists. Hodaka Yoshida's wife Chizuko Yoshida and daughter Ayomi Yoshida also were artists, just like Tōshi Yoshida's wife Kiso Yoshida.

Father:

Ueda Tsukane

Adoptive father:

Kasaburo Yoshida

Wife:

Fujio Yoshida

Fujio Yoshida (1887-1987) was a Japanese artist. She was the first female artist among the Yoshida family artists.

Son:

Toshi Yoshida

Tōshi Yoshida (1911-1995) was a Japanese printmaking artist associated with the sōsaku-hanga movement, and son of shin-hanga artist Hiroshi Yoshida. The movement’s principles involved the idea that a single artist would draw, carve, and print his own works, rather than dividing the tasks for assistants to carry out.

Daughter-in-law:

Kiso Yoshida

Son:

Hodaka Yoshida

Hodaka Yoshida (1926-1995) was a Japanese modernist artist. He worked first in oils, and from 1950 in the woodblock print medium.

Daughter-in-law:

Chizuko Yoshida

Chizuko Yoshida (1924-2017) was a Japanese modernist artist. Her works reflected the development of art in Japan following World War II. She provided a connective link between widespread modern art movements and traditional Japanese imagery.

granddaughter :

Ayomi Yoshida

Ayomi Yoshida (born 1958) is a contemporary Japanese artist. She is best known for her room-sized installations of woodchips that have been displayed in galleries and museums in Japan and the United States.

References

• The Complete Woodblock Prints of Yoshida Hiroshi Summarizes the work of all the effort while Yoshida took over the sterling qualities of ukiyo-e, woodblock prints to be into photography as an oil painter painting.
  1987
• Japanese Legacy: Four Generations of Yoshida Family Artists Featured artists include Kasaburo Yoshida, Hiroshi Yoshida, Toshi Yoshida, Hodaka Yoshida, and the Yoshida women: Fujio, Chizuko, Kiso, and Ayomi, with approximately 20 oil paintings, 15 watercolors, and 100 woodblock prints, several sketchbooks, and other supporting photographs.
  2002