Toshio Aoki

Born in Yokohama, also known by his artist name “Hyosai.” Aoki was the most “successful” Japanese painter accepted by wealthy people in the United States during the late 19th to early 20th century. Around 1880, he was employed by Deakin Brothers, a San Francisco-based company that sold Japanese goods. While engaged in producing merchandise for sale, he soon began to work as an illustrator for newspapers. In 1885, Aoki moved to Pasadena and started a partnership with G. T. Marsh, who later opened a store specializing in Oriental goods. Aoki performed live demonstrations of Japanese painting there, and his exotic style was also welcomed nationwide in the United States. However, Aoki had long been thrust into evaluation through demonstration work like street performers or through exoticism towards different races. Furthermore, the gap between the high art envisioned by Japan and the acceptance of Japanese images in the Western world, which was a twisted mental gap between Japan and the West internalized in the demand for Japonismé, calls for further discussion.