Ryumon Yasuda

Born in 1891, as the youngest of five siblings in a farming family in Arami, Ryumon Village (now part of Kinokawa City). His birth name was Juemon. Having advice and financial support from his brother in the United States, he enrolled in the Western Painting Department of the Tokyo Fine Arts School at the age of 20. Selected for the Nika Exhibition during his time at the school, his graduation work Old Peasant Woman was purchased by the School, and Mother and Daughter received a special award at the Bunten (Ministry of Education Art Exhibition) in the same year. He joined the sculpture department of the Japan Art Academy and received the Chyogu Prize at the 5th Inten (Academy Exhibition) in 1918. In 1919, he joined the inauguration of Nanki Bijutsu Kai, which gathered artists residing in Tokyo but originally from Wakayama, with Yorimichi Tokugawa as its President.
In 1920, while en route to study in Paris, he stayed in the United States. Initially, he stayed in Seattle and communicated with photographic artists. After visiting his older brother Yuzo in his vineyard, he moved to the East Coast, and in January of the following year, he crossed the Atlantic from New York to Paris, where he studied under Antoine Bourdelle. Returning to Japan in 1924, Yasuda had the Japan Art Academy as his platform. Based in a house with an attached studio designed by Isaku Nishimura in his hometown, and he continued working. After the war, he taught at the sculpture department of the Osaka Municipal Institute of Fine Arts from 1946, then at Wakayama University’s Arts and Sciences Department (now Department of Education) from 1953. Yasuda left many public works throughout Japan, such as the wall reliefs of the Wakayama Prefectural Office and the headquarters building of the Kiyo Bank in Wakayama, and the Heiwa-do project in the Heiwa Park in Nagoya City for which he spent more than ten years finalizing the entire plan.