1941
In 1941, Shōen became the first woman painter in Japan to be a member of the Imperial Art Academy.
In 1941, Shōen became the first woman painter in Japan to be a member of the Imperial Art Academy.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/7514372741/?tag=2022091-20
松園 上村
Uemura Shōen (born Uemura Tsune) was born on April 23, 1875 in Kyoto, Japan. She was the second daughter of a tea merchant. She was born two months after the death of her father and, thus, grew up with her mother and aunts in an all-female household. Her mother's tea shop attracted a refined, cultured clientele for the art of Japanese tea ceremony.
As a child at age 12, Uemura Shōen drew pictures and exhibited considerable skill at drawing human figures. In 1890, by the age of 15, she was exhibiting her work and winning awards in official art contests as well as commissioning work for private patrons.
Uemura Shōen was sent to the Kyoto Prefectural Painting School, where she studied under the Chinese style landscape painter Suzuki Shōnen. She also began studying the Kanō school and Sesshū schools styles of painting. Suzuki was so impressed that he gave her the first kanji of his own pseudonym of "Shōnen" in recognition of her talent. Shōen even allowed her to pursue her desire to paint figurally in his private studio despite the fact that the school's traditional teaching method did not allow students to being figural practice until their later years.
In 1894, Shōen became a disciple of Kōno Bairei and later of his successor Takeuchi Seihō.
Uemura Shōen began exhibiting her works in 1898, participating at the Exhibition of New and Old Art ("Shinko Bijutsu Tenrankai" or "Shinkoten") in Kyoto, Japan.
Later she focused on producing work for display and sale at the government-sponsored "Bunten" exhibitions starting from 1907. The purchase of her painting "The Beauty of Four Seasons" by the Duke of Connaught on his visit to Japan, raised her to celebrity status at the meer age of fifteen.
Shōen was also chosen shortly after by the Japanese government to have her work shown in the Chicago World Exposition of 1893 along with many other prominent artists at the time, all older and mostly from Tokyo in comparison. Shōen painted another version of "The Beauty of Four Seasons" for the exposition.
Shōen drew from her artistic training and her personal interest in woodblock prints and older painting styles to develop new techniques and styles of composition with a broad range of subjects. Themes and elements from the traditional Noh drama frequently appeared in her works, but images of beautiful women (bijin-ga) came to dominate her work. Eventually, her work would combine the themes of both Noh and women in a single composition. From 1917 to 1922, she entered a slump and declined to participate in exhibitions for several years.
In 1924, she returned to the art world by exhibiting a painting titled "楊貴妃" (Yohki Hime, Princess Yohki) at the Fourth Exhibition of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts.
During the 1930s, when Shōen was in her late 50s and early 60s, she began producing very large works. Those works included "Spring and Autumn" (1930), "Jo-no-mai" (1936), and "Soshi-arai Komachi" (1937). Many of those works, especially "Jo-no-mai" are now considered her greatest masterpieces. "Jo-no-mai" and "Soshi-arai Komachi" were inspired by the Noh theater - Shoen took great inspiration from the female character in noh theater.
In 1941, Shōen became the first woman painter in Japan to be invited to join the Imperial Art Academy. She was appointed a court painter to the Imperial Household Agency in 1944. In February 1945, Shōen was evacuated from Kyoto to the suburbs of Nara.
Uemura Shōen died of cancer on August 27, 1949 in Nara, Japan.
Uemura Shōen was an important artist in Meiji, Taishō and early Shōwa period Japanese painting. She was considered a major innovator in the bijin-ga genre. Besides, she was respected for her fight for women's rights in Japan and her achievements as a great artist not just a female artist.
Shōen received many awards and forms of recognition during her lifetime within Japan, being the first female recipient of the Order of Culture award in 1948. Moreover, her painting "Jo no mai" was the first painting by a Japanese woman to be rated as an Important Cultural Property by the Agency of Cultural Affairs.
Among her other awards were also the award at the Exhibition of New and Old Art in Kyoto in 1898 and the national award in 1900 for a painting submitted to an exhibition sponsored by the Japan Fine Arts Academy (Nihon Bijutsuin) with the Japan Painting Association (Nihon Kaiga Kyokai).
In addition, Uemura Shōen's works have been selected as the subject of commemorative postage stamps twice by the Japanese government: in 1965 - "Jo no mai", to commemorate the 1965 Philatelic Week; in 1980 - "Mother and Child", as part of the Modern Art Series.
In 2000, Uemura Shōen herself was the subject of a commemorative postage stamp under the Cultural Leaders Series by Japan Post.
Coiffure (Oshidori-mage)
Bijinga
Shizuka
Snowflakes
Flower Basket
Sound of Tsuzumi
Women Waiting for the Moon to Rise
Yang gui fei
Self Portrait at 16
Large Snowflakes
Spring Garden
unknown title (Bijinga)
Young Leaves
Daughter Miyuki
Snow
Preparing for Dance
Noh Dance Prelude
Cherry Blossom Viewing
unknown title (Bijinga)
Madame Kusunogi Masashige
Bijinga
Mother and Child
Kinuta
Flames
Springtime of Life
During World War II Shōen supported nationalism in pieces like "Late Autumn" which depicted a beautiful woman doing her part to help the war. Despite her advanced age, she travelled to the war zone in China at the invitation of the Japanese government for propaganda purposes, to prove to people back home that all was going well.
Quotations: "Never once did I paint a work with the expectation that it would be a fine work as long as the woman depicted was beautiful. My earnest hope is that all my works are like fragrant jewels, always with a sense of fresh purity, never with even an iota of the vulgar."
In 1941, Shōen became the first woman painter in Japan to be a member of the Imperial Art Academy.
Uemura Shōen was suspected of a liaison with her teacher, Suzuki Shōnen, which may have been true. Soon afterwards she gave birth to an illegitimate son, the painter Uemura Shōkō, whom she raised as a single mother. She later gave birth to a daughter and, likewise, never revealed the name of the father.
