Settai Komura

March 22, 1887 (age 53)

Chiba, Japan

From 1910 to 1912 Settai Komura created copies of old artworks for the art monthly “Kokka,” for which his depiction of "Fugen Enmei" (undated), a Bodhisattva seated on a lotus supported by four elephants, would be representative of his employment at the time. A few years later, in 1918, Settai Komura left behind the fine art world to take up a position at Shiseido where, among other things, he designed perfume bottles. It was not until 1922, when Settai Komura began work on book illustrations for the novelist Satomi Ton (1888-1983), that Komura’s career started to define itself. His illustrations for Kunieda Kanji’s (1892-1956) 1934 serialized novel "Osen", which was published in the Asahi Shimbun, helped Komura’s reputation to spread further. Though successful as an illustrator, Komura occasionally revived his fine-art aspirations with non-narrative paintings. In theses images, it appears that Komura, who took up stage design for kabuki and film shortly after his debut as an illustrator, was transferring his design skills to fine art with mixed results. Komura’s transition from early fine-art training to commercial design ultimately led to a divorce from wider art-world dialogues and hence his work has received little recognition since his death. This present rehabilitation is in part due to the novelty of discovering something anew, though it seems likely that he will slip back into oblivion once the public grow weary of the current fascination and moves on. His paintings are few and diminutive in scale and his illustrations, though numerous, are essentially backdrops to the more central arts of literature and kabuki. Like the anti-narrative focus in his paintings, Komura’s oeuvre is largely unconnected to the stories that shape art history as it presently stands.

Settai Komura

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also known as Taisuke Yasunami

painter

Background

Settai Komura was born on the 22nd of March in 1887 in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. He was originally named Taisuke Yasunami.

Education

Settai Komura had a conventional start to his artistic career, studying nihonga (Japanese painting) in the atelier of Araki Kampo in 1903 and then entering the nihonga course at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts the following year. He graduated four years later. He also graduated from Tokyo Art College and became a pupil of Eikyu Matsuoka.

Career

From 1910 to 1912 Settai Komura created copies of old artworks for the art monthly “Kokka,” for which his depiction of "Fugen Enmei" (undated), a Bodhisattva seated on a lotus supported by four elephants, would be representative of his employment at the time. A few years later, in 1918, Settai Komura left behind the fine art world to take up a position at Shiseido where, among other things, he designed perfume bottles.

It was not until 1922, when Settai Komura began work on book illustrations for the novelist Satomi Ton (1888-1983), that Komura’s career started to define itself. His illustrations for Kunieda Kanji’s (1892-1956) 1934 serialized novel "Osen", which was published in the Asahi Shimbun, helped Komura’s reputation to spread further. Though successful as an illustrator, Komura occasionally revived his fine-art aspirations with non-narrative paintings. In theses images, it appears that Komura, who took up stage design for kabuki and film shortly after his debut as an illustrator, was transferring his design skills to fine art with mixed results.

Komura’s transition from early fine-art training to commercial design ultimately led to a divorce from wider art-world dialogues and hence his work has received little recognition since his death. This present rehabilitation is in part due to the novelty of discovering something anew, though it seems likely that he will slip back into oblivion once the public grow weary of the current fascination and moves on.

His paintings are few and diminutive in scale and his illustrations, though numerous, are essentially backdrops to the more central arts of literature and kabuki. Like the anti-narrative focus in his paintings, Komura’s oeuvre is largely unconnected to the stories that shape art history as it presently stands.