Yoshida: generations of innovation in Japanese printmaking

The overlapping lives and influences of generations of the Yoshida family reveal how they continually redefined the medium of printmaking. This unique family will be the subject of the exhibition 'Yoshida: Three Generations of Japanese Printmaking', which opened at Dulwich Picture Gallery this June.

'Yoshida: Three Generations of Japanese Printmaking' at Dulwich Picture Gallery

Yoshida Hiroshi (1876–1950)

Yoshida Hiroshi's woodblock printing bridged the gap between tradition and modernity, playing a crucial role in both preserving and furthering Japanese printmaking.

Trained in traditional and Western painting, travel was a crucial influence on Hiroshi, as it was on subsequent generations of the Yoshida family. He first left Japan in 1898 accompanied by his fellow painter Nakagawa Hachirō, holding successful exhibitions across the US, before embarking for Europe in 1900. They arrived in London and visited an array of galleries and museums. They were determined to discover Dulwich Picture Gallery, only to be told by a police officer at Victoria Station it did not exist. Undeterred, their signatures are still visible in the Gallery guestbook from 29th May.

Yoshida Hiroshi and Nakagawa Hachirō named in the Gallery guestbook

Travelling home through Europe and America, they returned armed with a store of sketches of Western art. Two years later, in 1903, Hiroshi left for the US again, this time with his future wife, Yoshida Fujio. They enjoyed successful exhibitions of their work, before moving on to Europe and North Africa.

The paintings Hiroshi produced during his European travels became important motifs for his later woodblock prints. Initially working with a renowned print shop in Tokyo, he was persuaded by a further trip to the US of the popularity of Japanese prints abroad and opened a workshop in his home. The only artist in his home country to cater to Western buyers by signing and titling his prints in English, Hiroshi opened a new direction in the field by incorporating Western painting into Japanese prints. At the end of 1930, a journey to Southeast Asia and India resulted in a remarkable series of prints depicting the Taj Mahal.

Hiroshi passed away in 1950 aged 73, and although he only started his career in woodblock printing late, he still designed around 259 prints. In the process, he not only redefined the nature of Japanese printmaking but also began a dynasty of artists.

Yoshida Fujio (1887–1987)

An extremely talented artist, Yoshida Fujio – Hiroshi's wife – was one of the first Japanese women artists to study Western painting and to achieve international recognition.

Fujio was taught to paint by her father, an art teacher who also ran the family painting business. As she could not inherit this, he took on a male pupil – Hiroshi, who was adopted into the family. Fujio's father died when she was seven, and in 1894 her mother took the family to Tokyo, where Fujio and Hiroshi attended the same private art school.

In 1903, Fujio went with Hiroshi to the US, where they jointly exhibited and sold works. She broke new ground as the first female Japanese artist to visit and exhibit in America. Having travelled on through Europe and North Africa, the couple married upon their return to Japan in 1907.

Fujio's exposure to Western art, and particularly Impressionism, changed her style, but family tragedy – the death of her daughter Chisato and her son Tōshi's partial paralysis from polio – curtailed her career.

Fujio returned to painting in 1920, although in 1918 she had helped to found the first association of female artists in Japan, the Vermilion Leaf Society. Her art was characterised by experimentation in figurative painting, landscapes, garden views, still lifes and war scenes. She also briefly explored engraving.

After the Second World War, she began to play with abstraction, creating bold oil paintings of flower heads and further exploring the print format. With the death of Hiroshi in 1950, the work of their sons – Tōshi and Hodaka were both now artists – had a profound effect on Fujio, who was inspired to create abstract depictions of native Japanese flora. These designs marked her return to engraving after nearly 30 years and were the starting point for an incredible series of woodblock prints in the early 1950s, which delicately captured flowers with undulating, stylised lines.

Following her husband's death, Fujio lived with Hodaka and his wife, Chizuko, and travelled to America and Mexico in her 80s. In her 90s, she held her first solo exhibition in Tokyo, and continued to work until she died in 1987, days short of her 100th birthday.

Yoshida Tōshi (1911–1995)

The first to continue the Yoshida artistic legacy, Tōshi – Hiroshi and Fujio's eldest son – was tutored in painting and printmaking from an early age. Born in 1911, Tōshi contracted polio, which prevented him from attending school. At 14, he joined the newly founded Yoshida workshop and, as the eldest son, was expected to follow in his father's footsteps. He studied at the Pacific Western Style Painting Association, co-founded by his father, and trained at the more traditional Kawabata Painting School. Tōshi also travelled widely, first with his parents, and then alone, visiting Mexico, the US, Canada and Africa. These travels had a profound influence on his style and choice of subjects.

Following his father's death in 1950, Tōshi became the head of the family, taking over running the workshop. His initial challenge was to restore the business, which had suffered during the war.

Alongside his prints, he reprinted and promoted his father's work, while he and his brother produced bold abstract prints independently of the workshop. Tōshi also co-authored a highly influential book, Japanese Printmaking: A Handbook of Traditional and Modern Techniques (1966).

Tōshi credited his brother's art as inspiration for his prints in 1952, which enjoyed a certain simplicity and calm, with his underwater subjects entirely original in the Yoshida family repertoire. He designed almost 300 abstract prints between 1952 and 1975, with influences from Mesoamerican glyphs, Chinese bronzes, Native American patterns and Mayan artefacts the brothers had seen during a trip to Mexico.

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Like previous generations, Tōshi was a keen traveller and during 1970–1971 he drove with his wife and children from Maine to California, giving lectures and demonstrations. Further trips to Africa led to some of his finest naturalistic works, evoking the heat and colour of that landscape.

Tōshi passed away in 1995, honoured by the artistic community for his dedication to preserving the traditional techniques of woodblock printmaking and mentoring young artists.

Yoshida Hodaka (1926–1995)

Hodaka – Hiroshi and Fujio's younger son – is widely seen as a pioneer and leader of early Japanese modernist printmaking. He broke the conventional mould by promoting the artist's self-expression and, in the process, directly challenged his family's traditions.

Hodaka was born in 1926, named after Mount Hotaka in tribute to his father's lifelong fascination with mountaineering. Hiroshi was keen for his son to become a scientist since his elder brother would take over the family business, but shortly after the Second World War, Hodaka taught himself to paint. He entered his work in exhibitions and won recognition for their quality, although his father was shocked to discover his preference for abstraction.

Profile of an Ancient Warrior

1958, artwork by Yoshida Hodaka (1926–1995)

At one exhibition in 1947, he first met his future wife, Inoue Chizuko. In the same year, Hodaka began to experiment with woodblock printing, although he did not exhibit until after Hiroshi's death in 1950. In 1953, the couple – now married – featured in national and international art shows and joined the Japan Abstract Art Club.

During a career that lasted over 45 years, Hodaka produced around 130 oil paintings and over 600 prints. He always kept abreast of the latest methods and technologies, exploring lithography, etching and screen printing. His art went through distinct periods of evolution, ranging from early semi-abstract works to Japanese Buddhist prints and works inspired by mythology, landscape and finally architecture. He drew on a variety of styles, such as Expressionism, Abstract art, Pop art, photorealism and colour field abstraction.

Hodaka was influenced by American Pop art and mass commercial culture, using the word shinwa, meaning 'myth' or 'mythology', in the titles of his work to reference the strangeness of Western culture.

Yoshida Chizuko (1924–2017)

Chizuko was one of the most innovative Japanese printmakers of the second half of the twentieth century. While many of her male contemporaries maintained a single style, she constantly experimented with differing themes and techniques.

Born into a family of art collectors in 1924, Chizuko was immersed in a stimulating environment where music, dance and the visual arts were part of daily life. She studied art, and in the late 1940s joined two professional societies, which brought her into the orbit of the Yoshida family – the Pacific Western Style Painting Association and the Vermilion Leaf Society. She also became affiliated with avant-garde group The Century Society, which exposed her to international developments in art and politics.

In 1949, Chizuko first met Hodaka, with whom she exhibited often before they married. They both attended the First Thursday Society, which pioneered creative prints and Abstract Expression in Japanese art, prompting Chizuko to turn to woodblock printing. She experimented with styles and techniques from Abstract Expressionism and Op art to nature and landscape studies. In 1956, she co-founded the Women's Print Association to promote female printmakers.

Chizuko's art, meanwhile, received increasing international recognition. She travelled extensively to the US, Europe and Asia. Inspired by these trips, she cultivated her distinctive vision, creating visual interpretations of design, dance and music, gradually embracing the abstraction of natural phenomena.

In the 1960s, Chizuko started to print large-scale architectural forms and Japanese calligraphy, using embossing to give her prints visual depth and texture. She explored other techniques, including incorporating photo etching and juxtaposing colours and forms to achieve more dynamism. From the mid-1970s to the 1990s, her prints often depicted flowers and butterflies, used as metaphors for female beauty, sexuality, imagination and emotion.

Yoshida Ayomi at 'Yoshida: Three Generations of Japanese Printmaking' at Dulwich Picture Gallery

Chizuko passed away in 2017, a hugely respected figure for her art and for championing female artists. Influenced by traditional Japanese printmaking and the Yoshida tradition of woodblock printing, she also incorporated Western artistic movements and ideas, creating a captivating fusion of traditional and modern styles, with a rich repertoire of textures and techniques. She and Hodaka had two children who are continuing the Yoshida artistic tradition – Ayomi (b.1958), a printmaker, and Takasuke (b.1959), a jewellery artist.

Dr Monika Hinkel, curator of 'Yoshida: Three Generations of Japanese Printmaking'

See the exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London until 3rd November 2024

A longer version of this article was originally published in In View, Dulwich Picture Gallery's members' magazine, edited by Malcolm Cossons

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