Yasuo Kuniyoshi

Born in Okayama City. In 1906, Kuniyoshi left the textile course at Okayama Prefectural Technical School and moved to the West Coast of the United States. While attending public school, he was recommended to study in art school. After studying at the California School of Art and Design in Los Angeles, he moved to New York in 1910. In 1916, he attended the Art Students League and formed a close relationship with Eitaro Ishigaki and Toshi Shimizu. He exhibited at the Exhibition of Paintings organized by the Japanese Art Association in 1918, the Exhibition of Paintings and Sculptures by the Japanese Artists Society of New York City in 1922, and The First Annual Exhibition of Paintings and Sculptures by Japanese Artists in New York in 1927. In his first solo exhibition in 1922, he gained attention for his bird’s-eye-view-like landscape painting drawing inspiration from American folk art. Kuniyoshi stayed in Europe in 1925 and 1928. In 1929, he was selected for the exhibition of Paintings by 19 Living Americans in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, establishing his position as a painter. In 1931, he temporarily returned to Japan. During the 1930s, he expressed his emotions through still life and landscape paintings and also painted many melancholic female figures that appeared absent-minded. During World War II, he maintained a stance opposing Japan’s militarism. After the war in 1948, he held a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 1952, he was selected as one of the four American representatives at the Venice Biennale but died in New York in the following year.