 Hello and good evening. My name is Fabio Ki. I'm the chair of the Japan Resource Center here at SOS and it's my great pleasure to welcome you all here. Very good turnout for Wednesday evening. I would also like to welcome the people who are joining us online. We have 33 people so far. It's a particular pleasure because we've been talking about this event for quite a while. We started discussions over a year ago, I think, and there were different iterations and different formats, but finally we found the perfect match. So tonight's speaker is one of our very own, Dr. Monika Hinkel, who is a lecturer in the School of Arts here at SOS. She studied Japanese studies, Oriental art, history and political science at the University of Bonn and wrote her PhD thesis on the topic of the Japanese print artist Toyohara Kunitika and the influence of Fume Kaita, the civilization and enlightenment movement on his prints. She has been widely active as a curator and indeed will talk about her curatorial work for the Dulwich Picture Gallery today, but she's already this year or at the end of last year curated an exhibition at Eton, who unsurprisingly has substantial collections of Japanese woodblock prints. And so please welcome Dr. Monika Hinkel to the JSC. Thank you. Thank you so much, Fabio, for your very kind introduction and for having me tonight. But thank you all for coming. It's lovely to see so many familiar faces here tonight. And also welcome to everyone who has joined online. Thanks very much for your interest. So as Fabio already said, tonight's lecture is part, of course, of my research being an expert in Japanese woodblock prints, but it is connected to an exhibition that I'm currently creating at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. And it is called Yoshida's Three Generations of the Japanese Print Making, and it will run between the 19th of June and the 20th of October this year at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. And it will be the first UK exhibition actually on these print makers with Yoshida's. So they have been widely exhibited in the United States, but it is the first UK exhibition and I think I'm quite sure actually the first one in Europe. Of course, you need to ask yourself why the Dulwich Picture Gallery or first would like to introduce you to the Dulwich Picture Gallery because maybe some of you have not visited the gallery. It's actually the worst oldest public gallery. And here you see the entrance at the front and also a view from the back. It was founded in 1811. And it houses the previous private collection of Sir Francis Bourgeois who was a Royal Academician. And his collection was sort of the founding collection of this capitalist gallery. And the architect who created or designed the gallery space was Sir John Sohn, one of the leading architects at the time. And Bourgeois left around 2000 planets for John Sohn to create this space. I mean, since 1811 it has been many alterations and also additions. But one thing that I learned when I started the project, I became the project curator last March. At the top, there was actually a mausoleum at the top here, or in the middle of the gallery space. And the top of that mausoleum served as inspiration for the design of the London Red Fondue. I wasn't aware of that. I thought I shared it. It's not true tonight. I find that really quite fascinating. So the gallery space you see here, this is the permanent gallery space. And of course it's famous for its rubens, Rembrandts. So a lot of really well-renowned, particularly European artist Van Dijk, that is also often shown there. It's a succession of various rooms through these arches. And you have this wonderful light coming in from these roof lanterns that really give those exhibition galleries a beautiful atmosphere. And it also served to quite a lot of other museums, like the Getty Museum in LA, for example, as inspiration too. Coming back to my question, why Dalish, why the Yoshida family of printmakers is being exhibited there? I need to start with the first generation of printmakers, and this was Yoshida Hiroshi. He and his compatriot, his friend, who also signed there the book Nakagawa Hachiro. He left Japan, those two, in 1899 on a trip to the US. They were inspired by other many Meiji period artists at the time, in particular artists of yoga, western style painting, and wrenched to the States and visited a variety of cities. Detroit, Boston, Washington, Providence, and not only visited those cities, but also sewed their watercolors or oil paintings there. So they were hugely popular in the United States. The Americans simply loved those Japanese themes. And because they also sewed their artwork at those shows, they had accumulated quite a bit of money and were able to extend the trip. So in May 1900, they decided to leave them, and travel to England. So they arrived at the beginning of May, I think it was the 9th of May 1900 in Liverpool. On the next day, they took a train down to London in Falk. I have partly written, I have partly read the diary of Yoshida Hiroshi. And he said, yeah, it was a very foxy day, but we enjoyed them later on the beautiful English countryside on their way to London. So they stayed at a house close to Houston Square and spent a few weeks in London and explored various galleries. But somehow, and I wasn't quite able to establish why they have heard about the Dutch Picture Gallery. They made three attempts to visit the gallery. The first attempt was unsuccessful because the police officer at Victoria Station told them, the Dutch Picture Gallery, there is no such thing. So they visited other galleries, they visited the British Museum, the Royal Academy, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery. Maybe I should mention Hiroshi mentioned in his diary, at one point he grew quite tired of just seeing portraits. So they left the gallery. The second attempt was also unsuccessful because it was too foggy, but eventually they did make their way to the Dutch Picture Gallery by train, by steam train on Tuesday, the 29th of May 1900. And as you can see here, this is the guest or visitor's book of the gallery and you see there, yeah, Hiroshi Yoshida and Tatsuro Nakagawa in their signature in this digital. This was for the curatorists and the director, John Pascotte, at the Dutch Picture Gallery, a starting point for the idea to showcase a exhibition on this famous family of printmakers. And that for me was also a starting point. When I joined them, they had already selected some pizzas. So most of the artworks are almost 80 prints that they'll be on show from June onwards. They are mostly from the Fukuoka Art Museum in Kyushu, Japan. But we also have some loans from the British Museum and the Ashmolean and also some from private collections. When Hiroshi visited the States, sold his work. He was not yet a printmaker. He was a yoga painter, a painter in western style of watercolors and oil painters, but in particular he was a very famous watercolor artist. And these are two examples here on the right hand side. This is the type of watercolors that he produced that he sold in the States and that made him totally popular and already quite famous back in the States. So this is how he encountered also then Europe at the time, not as a printmaker yet, but he was very much influenced by all the western art, of course, that he encountered in the States and also here in Europe. It was only when he was in the 1940s, when he encountered the Japanese publisher Watanabe Shibaguro. And to then, yeah, he worked as a painter and was only through that meeting with this famous publisher of so-called Shin-Hunger prints, new prints. I have another slide about that shortly. He was the major figure who wanted to kind of reinvigorate the old Okuyo style printmaking of the Edo period. So Edo period 1603 to 1868 and he started already, or we have some Shin-Hunger prints already during the Meiji period. But then in the 1920s he encountered Yoshida Hiroshi and it was through that meeting that Hiroshi decided to become a printmaker and he produced designs. And what the so-called Okuyoic quartet, what he wanted to reinvigorate stands for is that you have four people involved in the production of a woodblock. You have the publisher and this was in this case Watanabe Shibaguro. Then you have the artist in this case now with Yoshida Hiroshi. And he worked hand in hand together with the cover and the printer. So that is why during the Edo period called the Okuyo Quartet and Watanabe wanted to really re-establish that now. And that is why we have then the so-called, not just because of him, but also of course all the artists who were eager to have their designs published by him. So here these are examples from the British Museum that won three in the exhibition just to give you an idea what Shin-Hunger prints look like. And the major Okuyoic themes were actors of Kabuki theater, beauty prints and landscapes. Everyone knows those beautiful prints of Hokusai and Hiroshi, of course, from the Edo period and Kawasa Hasui and also Yoshida Hiroshi. They are often referred to as the Hiroshigas of the 20th century. But you see here with Hashiguchi Ayo and Natori Shunsen, actor prints and beauty prints were also produced in this new type of Shin-Hunger. What did change that most of these Shin-Hunger prints during the 20th century were geared to the Western Indians. But this is the type of themes that you would encounter. Similar what I've mentioned at the beginning that Hiroshi was a yoga painter. We have a strand of Nikongo as well of Japanese style painting. And we also have a binary and two strands within printmaking that existed during the 20th century. And next to the Shin-Hunger movement, we also have the creative print movement. So Sakohanga movement. And you see here three very important works. The one here on the left hand side is always seen by Yamamoto Kanai as a seminar work of that So Sakohanga print. And the aim of that print movement was that an artist is in charge of all the steps of printmaking. He designs the print himself, he prints and he carves and he also prints the work himself. So without the impact and influence of the publisher and the other craftsmen. So this was really important. But you see here we have also figurative themes and landscape themes. We have a few designs that Hiroshi produced with Yoshida, with Watanabe Shizuoka though. But before I go into that, I would like to expand from Yoshida Hiroshi to show the six artists that will be showcased in the exhibition. So we have with Hiroshi, kind of the founder of that dynasty. But his wife, Fujio, she was one of the first leading female artists in Japan. A renowned painter and later print artist herself. They had two sons, well they had more children, but it was in particular their sons, Toshi, who took over the workshop of Hiroshi. And the second born son, Odaka, who will also be presented in the exhibition. And Odaka's wife, Shizuoka, she was even before they met and married a renowned artist herself. And we will close the exhibition with the third generation of the Yoshida family, and that is Yoshida Ayumi. And as you can see, she was born in 1958, she's been alive, and she came to Dalic last year. I met her then more about that later. So these are the six protagonists of the Yoshida family. That will be shown with their work in the Dalic Picture Gallery. And this is the gallery space. So earlier on, the rooms that I showed you with the red paint, this was the gallery space of the Rubens, the Van Dykes, the Rembrandts. And the gallery nine to six, this is the special exhibition gallery space. And in these rooms, we will show the work. So the first room is dedicated to the work of Yoshida Hiroshi. Then we are moving on into the second gallery, gallery eight, his wife, Fujio, and Hoshi will be shown. In the third gallery, gallery seven, his brother and his wife, Shizuoka, and in the final space, we will have an installation. A site-specific installation by Yoshida Ayumi, because she's not just a print artist, she's also doing installations. And this is the gallery space here from the Gert Moriso exhibition that was on at the gallery last year. So, yeah, we haven't quite decided yet on the color of the walls yet, but yeah, this will be the space where the exhibition will be in. As already said, Yoshida Hiroshi, he printed or produced a few designs through the publisher and the craftsman he engaged for the Watanabe publishing house. Unfortunately, in 1923, the great Kanto earthquake destroyed Tokyo. And the whole workshop of Watanabe Shozaburo, many of the wood blocks, many of the prints that he had in his workshop were destroyed. And also many of Hiroshi's designs and wood blocks. That was one of the reasons why then in 1923, Hiroshi decided to go on another trip to the United States to actually sell the prints that he still had to this American audience. And this was kind of a kickstart then, he realized how popular his prints also next to having sold in earlier years his paintings. He realized how popular these were among wisdom buyers. And upon his return to Japan, he opened his own print workshop in Tokyo. He worked together with also with carvers and also with printers. But he was very much involved in that whole system and that is the reason why I explained to you what Shintanga is and what Sosa, Sosa Kokanga is. Because the whole Yoshida family is actually the production of their prints from this stage onwards. Kind of a hybrid production in style and feel very much indebted to Shintanga. But the whole production process, because they were thoroughly engaged with the whole process, without a publisher. That is the part of the style of the Sosa Kokanga artists. And Yoshida Hiroshi also did carve some of his prints himself and also some of his designs he engaged as a printer. But throughout his life he was always thoroughly involved because he had learned from Watanabe and also then from the professional carvers and printers that he engaged in his own Yoshida workshop in Tokyo. He was the first Japanese print artist who then also signed and titled his prints in English. And most of his prints also have the appeal of Jiburi, which means self-printed in the modern. So even more so showcasing the dominance and the importance of his involvement in the print production process. And I show you here, he was a fan of the mountains, he was a mountaineer, he often went on plagues around Japan, and he produced in 1926 in his own workshop here, this beautiful print of the series of the Japanese Alps. But as I mentioned, when the earthquake had happened in Tokyo in 1923, he went on another trip to the States and Europe together with Fujio. And he made a lot of sketches while traveling. And these are the results from that trip. So you have here from 1925, then produce these after his return in Tokyo in his workshop with Grand Canyon and their captain. And you see here on the left hand margin, for example, of the Grand Canyon, you see the red seal of Jizuri, so self-printed. So this is really hugely important to have that incorporated in this work. And he produced six views altogether for this United States series, but then moving on to Europe. He also produced a series on European sites, where we have here the Acropolis at night in Greece and also a canal in London. What he was really intrigued by and fascinated by is the overall effect of changing light on south. And as I've already shown you here, I mean, you'll be seeing the sphinx by day and by night. He really wanted to capture not just those changing conditions, but with the selection of these of this famous site. He also is within the tradition of other period printmakers of the so-called theme of national, famous places, famous sites. So that was another hugely important, continuous theme that Shenhanga artists related to. So here, certainly one of his most iconic designs from that series. It belongs sometimes to the Europe series, but of course, it is simply part of that trip that he then commenced into Egypt. But these views and the effect of different times of day, of seasons and so on. He continued also with views of Japanese sites, in particular here Itaigawa in the morning and in the evening. He really played and produced them really in a quite laborious way. But many, many woodblocks, of course, for each color, he would have a different woodblock next to the key block. The shading and printing areas again and again to get the subtleties of the shading is really something that gives his prints quite sort of a painterly quality. Really absolutely amazing what he was able to achieve. In 1930 he went on a trip with his first son, Toshi, to India. And he also produced here a series in India and South Asia. And for many days he spent in front of the Taj Mahal sketching. And in his diary he mentions that they were always surrounded by locals who were very curious to see what they were doing there and simply watch them sketching the whole day long. Here again, he plays these different moods that he wanted to capture in the morning and also at night. And this is a really fascinating piece that will also be in the exhibition and I will go into that when I talk about Ayumi at the end. This is, for example, a woodblock print that he designed after a watercolor that he had already produced in 1904. And this happened quite frequently as well, so not just taking the inspiration from the sketches from his travels but also he sometimes then referred back to his watercolors that he had produced in previous years and had not sold to Americans, for example, or Japanese. So here he produces this really absolute iconic view of cherry blossom viewing of Kanami taking place, particularly here in Kumoi, close to Yoshino, which is one of the most iconic areas. Close to Mara, where a lot of cherry trees are and has been a site for inspiration for poems and paintings among a variety of generations of Japanese artists and poets. But what is also quite fascinating to pick on in the exhibition that was more showcased and explained in the catalogue because I won't be able to show this print by Hiroshige, but what we also would like to show in the exhibition is a kind of continuity and change. There are always references, as I've already mentioned, to previous generations of printmakers from the Edo period, like Hiroshige. So this famous view here, the bridge of Kamedo Shrine in, well, in Hiroshige's time it was still Edo, now of course during the Shura period, during Hiroshi's time it is Tokyo. So he was certainly inspired also by similar sites that during the Edo period would printmakers would also refer to and depict in their famous news. Let's move on to his wife, Fujio. As you can see here already with these two watercolors on the left hand side. She was also originally a watercolor painter. And as I said, she was one of the first renowned Japanese female watercolorists in Japan. Like Hiroshi, she was also born in Kyushu in Fukuoka, and her maiden name is Inuwa Fujio. And her father was a teacher but also an artist, Western style artist. And he did not have an heir for his workshop, and he actually adopted Hiroshi. So Fujio and Hiroshi are actually related, being step-brother and sister. But they later got married. So she did start at a very early age with sketching, seeing her father, seeing others within her father's studio. But her father died while she was fairly young, and then she moved with her mother to Tokyo, where Hiroshi had already moved to. So she became kind of, yeah, he became her guardian. He introduced her to a variety of painting schools and circles where she would also then practice her skills. And she accompanied him to trips to the States. And it is really quite fascinating to see the various photographs in previous catalogs. But Hiroshi died in 1950, and as you can see here from Fujio's life days. She died short of the 100th birthday in 1987. So this is actually a photograph of the family after Hiroshi's death. You see Fujio there in the right-hand corner. You see Toshi on the left-hand side, the first born son, which is by Kisu. The second born son, Fodaka here at the front next to Fujio, and Shizuko there in the background. So this is the nucleus of the Yoshida family after the death of Hiroshi. But what Fujio became famous for and after the death of Hiroshi, particularly the sons ventured out from particularly Fodaka's way of expression as you will see in a moment. And the work of her sons very much inspired Fujio. She had quite a plethora and diverse selection of themes that she covered in her works. As you could see earlier from the two watercolors here, she ventured quite similarly as Hiroshi did, showcasing scenes of Japan, but also made sketches on their travels to the United States and Europe. But the whole experiment of her sons with abstraction convinced her and also with printmaking, convinced her to produce a set of enlarged flowers. And she had done similar views of enlarged flowers in oil beforehand and took these as inspiration to create in 1953-54 a series of these enlarged flowers. She actually had the fishbowl that she used where she would place the flowers inside to get these detailed views that she then created here. And we know that she partly also then printed these. She had done prints in earlier years, but this was after a 13-year hiatus the first time that she had created prints again. And these are three of her most iconic pieces and we will have six of these enlarged flowers in the exhibition. Like with Hiroshi, she also traveled then with her sons. We see her here together with Podaka and Shizuko at the Dallas Museum of Art. So they continued their strong connections with museums in the United States where prints by Hiroshi were already in the collection. And so this very much continued. She was influential in the founding of the Shoryukai. This was the first, it's the Millenium Leaf Society. It's the first society for females in Japan that supported female artists in their work in the exhibition. And she was one of the founding members of that society. And in 2004, there was a special exhibition on the Yoshida family in the States. And I found this really so lovely from a contemporary artist, Shaburo. And it showed her later age, but closely connecting her to her very famous enlarged flower pieces. And I thought I just think this will not be in our exhibition. Let's move on to Yoshida Toshi. After the sudden death of Hiroshi in 1950, he took over the Yoshida workshop. He had, of course, as a child, he was born in 1911. As you can see here from an early age, he was sketching. He was involved with the whole printmaking business in his father's workshop. He used how all the craftsmen were working there, his father, how he did the designs, how the printers were and the carvers as well. And of course, being the first born, he was supposed to take over. And that is what he did. The business had, of course, suffered quite severely during the war and also in the years after the war. So he really pushed, enlarged the studio and really pushed the production of many of his famous and popular designs of his father, of Hiroshi. But also his own. And this is the type of art that he produced. And you see here really the wonderful legacy and the continuity of the works that his father had created. But we already sense here a stronger modernity, particularly in the view here of the Supperwagon and also of Shinjuku, which was already at the time really a very important hub in Tokyo. Similar to what his father experimented with different times of day, different moods, different seasons, different weather conditions, all this was also something that Toshi found fascinating. And in line with other period and other print makers, he also produced a series of a certain theme. And here we have in particular he was fascinated with Tokyo at night. And quite mesmerizing there, I think, the view from Yogaku Bridge with the Sumida River here, the reflection of those houses and restaurants, the lights there, but also the hustle and bustle there in this tiny alley here along the area of Shinjuku. And these are two pieces that we'll be showing too. I mean, earlier I showed the Kamido shrine, the inspiration that Hiroshi might have had from Hiroshige. Here we have the famous Himeji Castle, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of the most famous castles in Japan. And he produced this view here in 1951, which his father had done already in 1926. But not just copying the view, but certainly giving his own inspirations, own creation here. He traveled throughout Japan quite a bit, and he was mesmerized by the dry landscape gardens of Zen temples in Kyoto. He actually went, he married Kizo, they actually went kind of as a honeymoon as his brother did with Shizuoka. They went to Kyoto and you see here the stone garden on the left hand side, even though it doesn't say the name, it's the famous Yoranji Temple. And there on the right hand side, the famous garden of Kenryuji. And here he incorporates a new element, usually the key block is printed in black, but this is a series of white lines. So instead of the black key block, we actually see here the outlines in white instead of black. So this is really giving these views a completely different appeal and a certain likeness. But as I said, when I venture into the work of Fujio, particular of the, yeah, the death of Hiroshi, who was forced from the founder of that family, who hated actually. He made that quite, both of his sons. That is why this becomes slightly later in Toshi's urban, but it becomes visible. He had already been to the States and he became inspired by cliffs, by rocks that he then created in these subtle nuances of particular, quite always the unknown one, he sometimes gives them quite strange titles here from 1968. But he compares these monoliths, these cliffs almost like the buildings he would encounter in Tokyo. And because he had also traveled to Central America, he also incorporates sometimes sort of also connecting to indigenous culture and the States, sort of some of the patterns that he had viewed and encountered on these strips as you can see here in the print illusion. So he actually went on a trip in the late 60s, early 70s, together with his wife and his son to a children in a trailer that they had hired across the States. And they went to Santa Fe, he went to the Monument Valley, and quite in a similar way, his father was inspired by his travels, he then also produced views of the sites that he had seen, the people that he had met. For example, there in the Santa Fe example, or here Monument Valley and this is, I think, really one of the most mesmerizing works that he created to really capture that, the light that he must have seen there. While visiting these famous rocks there in the valley. So he then created, he made sketches during these trips as his father has done and produced these prints in the Yoshida workshop also in Tokyo. But interestingly enough, you could already see that with those two views of Santa Fe and the Monument Valley, his phase of creating abstract works was fairly short and towards the end of his life. He actually went back to creating natural realistic views here San Francisco from one of his many trips here, and I kind of compare and contrast it from the 70s into the 80s party together with his elderly mum, Trevor to Africa, and he took these troops as an inspiration for his, not just his own prints, he then also illustrated and produced children's books on animals of of Africa, really absolutely charming books that he that he designed and published. And I find it really absolutely fascinating in one way or the other, I think San Francisco and come out. We then bridge other sort of through the trees, you can then see sort of the roof and the skyline and the mountains in the background of San Francisco and you have to look really closely do you see the two tigers there among the weeds. So this is really, yeah, the whole atmosphere of the heat. I mean, look at the colors that he choose. He chose for this piece called camel flash, really absolutely amazing how he was able to produce to design that and how the covers and printer together with him were able to produce this piece. So this is the type and the dominant work that towards the end of his life. He then came back to them rather sticking with abstract routines. Let's move on to his brother hodaka. He wasn't supposed to become an artist, because it's particularly his father said, we have to she he took over the workshop. He was supposed to study science he did for a while, but he always sneak into the workshop and he produced designs, and he started to exhibit. And then one of the many exhibitions that existed in Japan for print makers. He entered a piece, and his father was there to judge them and he was surprised that it was his son's design and he had designed, of course an abstract print that, yeah. But nonetheless, it won a prize. But what I wanted to show here with this print by Hiroshi is reflecting Hiroshi's father's love of mountaineering, because hodaka is the name of one of the most famous mountains in Japan. And in one of his on one of his many hiking trips. And he also hired Mount hodaka that he then already wants for what are now shows up with all but that got destroyed the design the wood blocks of that first design of the mountain. He produced it again for the 12 views of the house in 1926. He produced it again in particular because that was the year hodaka was formed. So it was really celebrating the birth of his second son, naming him and also then producing this print. As I said in the year hodaka and shizuko got married they went to doubt on their honeymoon to Kyoto and Nara. And for those of you who have traveled to these two cities and visited the many temples there. That's exactly what hodaka and shizuko did. And this is then the type of interpretation that he created in his abstract things. He was thoroughly impacted by western art through magazines, but also travels to the states. And this becomes really right from the start apparent. He didn't want to create words in the style of his father and his brother. He really broke completely with the Yoshida tradition. And this is the type of work that he creates. Here Kornin Buddhist figures relating to a 9th century period in Japan, producing these abstract versions of wooden temple sculptures that he would have visited and stealing during his honeymoon. Well here in a similar way, Woods quite bold, this varying palette of browns that he shows us the branches, the stems hereof, the trees that he just shims us without any foliage whatsoever. But I think there's a very strong connection here that you can see I think with those wooden sculptures that we find quite fascinating. He does hear where still relate to Japanese traditions. If you look closely in this world of shapes and colors here, the profile of an ancient warrior, you can see a top knot of a samurai, you can see the sword of a samurai. So there are certain elements that still connect to Japanese traditional art, but in a completely new interpretation here in these abstract views that he preferred in his urban. As I said, he traveled, he was like his wife Shizuko impacted by surrealist movements, by pop art, by collage, and this is exactly what we then see within his work, not just creating his pieces with the pure woodblock printing technique, but he brings in photo engraving, photo-etching lithography, combining that with traditional woodblock printing technique. So he augmented really the techniques and experimented with this, which is absolutely fascinating. And you see here in this series in the 70s, there's a whole bunch of works that he titles mythology, shinwa in Japanese, which have some really obscure, very strange surrealist combinations of themes, but he was also traveling a lot. So a lot of the houses that you see in the background, he was a huge fan and had a huge impact on him, was his travels to Mexico. So a lot of the buildings that he incorporates in the background of these views were inspired by his trips to Mexico. Certainly experiments also with the famous vokashi, the gradation, the shading that you see there at the top, how he creates the sky. But then certainly surrealist movements combining really some obscure figures in the day, but also in the night view, but how they also then tend to correspond. That's all I want to say about these two views, but you see here most definitely a complete departure from anything that the first generation has done. And here most definitely we see the impact of pop art. I've visited New York many, many times here in particular in the one on the left hand side in the nonsense mythology. There are inspirations from magazines. He was interested in collage, not just general magazines, particularly erotic magazines. He incorporated into these designs but that kind of forms across here as you see the panels the squares in yellow, and then that are added then on either side also in red or their mythology of sky. Simply combination of a variety of elements that inspired him to create these associations with coins. You can really watch figurative elements there as well. Here really creating really absolute new views and these new interests that he had encountered in works of western artists of various movements where there was surrealism pop art and so on. So really embracing these new styles and art forms. Let's move on to she's a cold. Like Fujio, mother and law, she had already made a name for herself, as well as an artist before she married into the Yoshida family. As you can see here, beautifully in her sitting in her workshop on the left hand side, but I would like to make here the connection she started off also as a painter. She was very interested in music and dancing and she actually wanted to become a belly dancer, but she had an accident and that ended her dreams of becoming a dancer. On one hand, she produces these sites of gardens that we have seen in her brother-in-law's or Yoshida Hiroshi. This is a fictitious garden there, the posterior garden where he incorporated a variety of scenes from various gardens, but she's of course like Toshi, like her brother-in-law. She was also inspired by Tenryuji garden in Kyoto, but you see here a further abstraction. She was like Podaka, like her husband, also mesmerized and fascinated by abstract works and she was in particular fascinated and both part of the avant-garde group of the Sekinokai group that was led by the surrealist painter Kama Putaro. And they were part of that avant-garde group of writers and artists and that connection inspired her to move on from these more nature-inspired themes, creating these type of works, jazz and rain, where you see her love for music. I mean, in particular in rain, those black lines and dots, I mean, they're almost like musical notes that are jumping around those graphic elements in the background or here, jazz. Whether there might be also trumpets that she shows here, but certainly that atmosphere that she might have encountered in the jazz bath, the atmosphere there, the music that inspired her to still be able to dance more professionally, but she was still really a big fan of dancing. And this love for dancing and love for music really shines through in a lot of her works as we can see here, the movement. But also further abstraction is certainly another way that she went down partly also inspired. She exhibited many times together with her husband, Hodaka, I have not gone into all the various art circles that right from the beginning, every member of the Yoshida family was part of. But she was also part of the Shuyokai that her mother-in-law had founded. And she was also a founding member of the Association of Female Printmakers in Japan, with a set of five other female printmakers. So, like her mother-in-law, she was also one of those dominant forces for female artists in Japan or experimenting with blind printings and bossing here. They took a trip to Australia and in her diaries she often reflects on how she was inspired by flying over the Great Barrier Route and the beautiful scenes that she had encountered across Australia as well. And so, in this one here, this partly relates to that, but also, sorry, I didn't include that, I'm afraid. But she most definitely created these, yeah, new avenues, sort of just incorporating really just a very small patch here of color. And otherwise, working with this completely blank sheet of paper with this beautiful blind embossing that, of course, pantries of printmakers would have worked with as well. This, on the left-hand side, inspired by scenes in Hokkaido. On the right-hand side, this is the printmaker's association in Japan, invited artists for this series of 100 views of Tokyo, quite connecting to the 100 views of Edo, that Hiroshima produced in the 1860s during the Edo period. Here, Shizuko was invited to participate in that series, the 100 views of Tokyo Message to the 21st Century. And she chose a view from the Metropolitan Office, the Tocho in Shinjuku. And she says that she quite frequently went together there with Hodaka to view the scenery of all the skyscrapers and quarters that are dotted around that famous building. And slowly, I surely would like to come to a close, but I also wanted to include another photograph here of her family, Hodaka and Shizuko. And my next artist will be Ayumi, their daughter, who's seated there on the right-hand side next to her father. And you see here all the paraphernalia, the fascination that the whole family had about the travels to Latin America. So Ayumi is the third generation, the final member that we will showcase in the exhibition. I did interview her last year when she came and met her, which was quite an honour, knowing that her grandfather was this icon of Japanese printmaking. She had actually not right from the start a huge interest. She did sketch, she produced work, but like her parents, her uncle, but maybe her uncle, yes, she took over the Yoshida workshop, but really none of the others were really pushed into becoming artists. And saying here she had a very strong interest in architecture, she studied at Baku University in Tokyo, and she still lives and works in Tokyo. Being a member of the Yoshida family, she was also then drawn into the work of printmaking. And this is what she produces here. The example on the right-hand side, she was invited to contribute to the same series as her mom, the view from the tour show. Here Ayumi produces a view of the Kanmababa in Okashira, and this becomes really her forte. She is also very interested in environmental matters, and that's why we often find abstracted scenes of nature in her work. Oh, this was the one I wanted to show you earlier on, she looked at the view that was inspired by the view of the Great Barrier Reef. So that really being one of our themes in the exhibition, this continuity, the fascination with water, the reflections, but then of course in various types, from a naturalistic view by Hiroshi to quite abstract views there in the uber of Shizuko and her daughter Ayumi. And when she visited the Dalish Picture Gallery last year, it was really a very emotional moment for her because she was born in 1958, so she had never the chance to meet Hiroshi, who died in 1950, and so we showed her the visitor book and she touched the signature of her grandfather. And it was really quite a moving moment for everyone who was there. But for her installation, this is something that she thinks of creating in the final gallery space. This installation inspired by Cherry Blossom. I know it will be summer, it's from June on, but so we are slightly past the Cherry Blossom season, but she has done research and she has found out that in Dalish Village are Yoshino cherry trees, a type of cherry tree that came to Kew Gardner for the first time, I think around 1900, 1910. But there's also from the Japan Society and other institutions here in the UK, a project has been running for years of planting cherry trees across the UK. And part of that project, that is why we have in Kern Hill and in Dalish Village, also cherry trees. And that inspired her for the installation that will be partly woodblock printed pieces, but also other materials that she will incorporate. This is an installation she did a few years back in LA in San Francisco. But it kind of brings us full circle because this theme of Cherry Blossom of seasonality is really visible throughout Japanese art and also throughout the three generations of Yoshida printmakers. And in particular, I think the pieces that we have within the exhibition here of the first master of Hiroshi quite strongly show this first master and his love for Cherry Blossom, but also then this granddaughter I will be doing this fascinating installation then in the gallery space. So watch out for that. And I do thank you for your attention. And I hope to see you again at the gallery from John onwards. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for a fascinating presentation. So beautiful. I think that's the most beautiful thing that we've seen this year. No offense. Maybe I'll start us off with both the classic economic format. Please prepare your questions. If you're online, you can feed your questions into the Q&A function. But I wanted to ask you because you started out by saying that it's a machine hunger and it's also hunger. And there's two different ideas there on one hand. You have to pull creative control over the whole process if you do the designing and the carving and the printing itself. But of course, that means you there's sort of an amateurish feel to it. At the beginning that you said you wanted to revive the distribution of labor. That was what I love about. So that was the publisher. That was the publisher here at first worked together but that brought him to create him. Right. And so he wanted to revive this. That quartet of, yeah, that we had already doing the adult period of Patricia designer power and printing. Exactly where each person has a separate job to so to say. Right, which is a very modern sort of distribution of labor. Yeah, which maybe goes slightly against the idea of the artist as a sort of creator or genius. I did this myself would be sort of remarkable in this field. Exactly. Exactly. I mean it was particular. I mean, even though what I was inspired to become a plant maker. So from that point onwards he basically only produced plants. Right. But particularly after the experience with the earthquake and having, yeah, I mean, of course, his workshop could have been destroyed as well with the earthquake but he realized that having had the experience with what another you did have some impact, depending on your status also during the other period as an artist, but the publisher was the one who had the finances, he was at the helm of the publishing house so he had to say. Right. So from that perspective. I guess liberating I guess for for he was she to say. This is not how I want to work. I have these insights I have these amazing craftsman these covers and printers. But I asked the artist had the same. Right. What is printed how is printed so that was a complete ship and interesting dynamic that we do have them from the early 20th century so not all so subtle from the artists really did produce every single step. But the general idea was to really be like he was in charge of the purpose and have a stay in the process that was the future that maybe not doing really each step yourself but to be closely involved and engage with the craftsman that worked for him and the others. Thank you. Thank you. Right. Questions from the floor. There's movement. Yes, please. Thank you. You just. Calling the father. Question. I was wondering how not only hills, the nature generation did they have a student before. Or they did it. They did it by themselves. And they have that chance. Or well, sure. We still have some carvers and printers working there, but actually from the second generation onwards, usually the prints are referred to as Sosa Kugange prints. And we also have Toshia, but in particular, Gahudaka and Shizuku, and Agil Yuswell, who were involved with both processes of carving and also painting. So there are probably even more than Hiroshi and Toshia were even more involved and were proper Sosa Kugange artists than the first two masters of Hiroshi and Toshia. Yes, thank you for that. Thank you for the testimony that was really, really fascinating. And I was wondering about your special work. It's a very simple question, but because of his interest in experimenting with light, I was wondering if there was some kind of connection with impressionism. I was wondering if there was or not because we're already in the 1930s and impressionism in Europe had a way. It's not a main reason. But because he was a yoga painter, a resident style painter beforehand, what yoga painters took as inspiration is not just the material of the canvas and oil, or then watercolor. It was also particularly those who traveled abroad. Many of those studies in Paris was of course impressionism, plain errors and changing of light, changing of daylight, night of weather conditions as well. I mean, we do have that in France as well. So as I'm trying to skip lectures on Japanese and I always actually argue that, for example, if you look at Monet's haystacks, the serialization of that, showing a haystack at different times of day. Where does that come from? I also argue that that was already apparent in the Woodward France that Monet inspired and that he collected. So that might be an interesting argument or sort of spread to follow who experimented with that first. But there is certainly already something that he had studied and experienced as a yoga painter, before he became a print designer and artist that had certainly impacted him, particularly then also those various travels to America and also to Europe, seeing rest and art firsthand, of course, gave further inspiration and impact. Yes, anyone over there? Fascinating. Thank you very much. I was very much struck by the amount of traveling that they did in Europe. She was very early in the U.S. And I wonder what was the reception from this war? Right from the start. I mean, when I went in 1889 for the first time, that was actually through an invitation of Freer, who then unfortunately went off on a month's long trips and didn't actually meet him. But that is one of the reasons why they set out or had also heard from other yoga painters who had traveled to the States. And that painting was simply hugely popular. I mean, right from the start, Ruki Roshi did these exhibitions at museums in Boston, Detroit, Washington, and so these people. So, and that is one of the reasons why this painting, but also this print and the whole Yoshida family, because every generation, they traveled to the States, they did workshops, I didn't go into that at all today. Yeah, they trained print makers there. They also had workshops in Japan, art centers there. So they were very active in promoting print making. And that is the reason why we have had so far the only special exhibition on that family in the States, because a lot of museums have really great collections of Yoshida families in their communities. And that's how we're going to work, yeah. But I think that is one of the reasons we thought there was a focus, really, and very engaged with American collectors, and museum satisfy their... Where did it start? American collectors. And was there any kind of main person in that design? It was basically, I mean, one museum that is really absolutely crucial for showcasing their work is the Tohido Museum of Art and Dorothy Blair, who was equivalent to that. So she did the first two main exhibitions on him, and then on the Japanese tents, and that catapulted their fame, and really enhanced the overall knowledge of... Yeah, the Americans found their... Yeah, that is really sort of the certain connections that were made during the initial visits, but then most certainly, certain museums, like the Tohido Museum of Art, and these two capitals are still, yeah, diverse research about him today, or in Shinhanga Art. So this is really... Yeah, you need these moments, often, that then increase the knowledge, the profanality of the art. So, yeah, he was lucky to have matched these three years, and he could find the three main museums here, and put it this way. And while we also have curiosity on the American site, there will be mesmerized by this switch, or we'll choose one. Thank you. There's several questions online here from Peter McNamara. For example, thank you for a wonderful lecture. The profile of an ancient warrior, had a color palette reminiscent of Paita art from Canada, and also as an American. Did that have been an influence on all of that? I haven't, yeah, come across the Canada connection when I did research for the exhibition in Katamok. But, yeah, that is a very interesting aspect to maybe keep in mind. I mean, both brothers, because there's a lot of inspiration from their travels and artworks that they encounter. So, yeah, it would be interesting to investigate further. Thanks very much for the time. Thank you. Okay, we have one more... There are all those pieces in the exhibition, and it's not where we see them. Yeah, so most of the pieces that I showed in the presentation, all those basically that have a black color caption. The white color ones are not. I took these in, which was very handy to be able to do that in a powerful presentation during a talk today. So, these won't be in the exhibition, but, yeah, those that you've seen with the black captions, they are. So, as I said, we have, yeah, with the installation of Ayumi, yeah, almost 80, 80 words presented in the show. Thank you. There was another question from the room. Thank you very much. There's another one about being fluent. So it's one thing, who do you wish this large flower thing, there are a lot of things that you want to repeat. Will she have been, will she have been in the exhibition, or did she, do you know if there was an infusion? It has been picked up. So the question is the impact or the similarity of the Fujio's flower prints and the impact maybe, Georgia Keith had on her work. It has been picked up by many scholars beforehand, what the family said. No. No. So, yeah, they deny that it's an exploration because she had dipped into the topic before and had confused the oil painting and independently had created these views of the enlarged flowers, but I was waiting for the question. Thank you very much. Thank you. There's one one here and then over there. Hi, thank you for the presentation. I just have few quick questions. Well, we have a word blog in the exhibition. And the second question is about from Fukunoma Museum and Public Collections. What are the other sources that you've taken with you as well? Okay, so we will have in the so-called mouse and Leon space, which is in between those two wings of the gallery space. So, we will have a video and we will also have tools from the family and a woodblock. So, where you can actually see the type of chisels that they use, the barren, the pad that they use to press the pigments into the paper from the woodblock. We will be exhibiting that. In the next video, we are going with yet I'm not quite sure, but there will definitely also be a woodblock. And one piece we also have works from the Ashmolean Museum. There's a very famous series that I didn't touch on last night about a junk from the Citadel Town and he produced a succession of prints where we see the different stages, how colour woodblock is being produced from the different stages and the different colours that are being used. So, that booklet, so to say, of these stages will be presented. So, most of the prints are as you said from the Falkham Museum, the British Museum and also the Ashmolean and St. Louis family. So, here I think quite a few are in the Minneapolis Museum of Art. Of course, the Tavillo Museum of Art that I mentioned has quite a few Boston Museum of Fine Arts. There are more. But these are, I think, the ones and the Metropolitan Museum in New York is also some material items. So, if you're interested in that, I have a whole list of other collections. But there's always a fabulous website where you can search engines and that will produce a variety of collections. Thank you. Thank you for your valuable presentation. I'll have two questions. It's all now curated. And first question is, when you send out some of the paintings when you couldn't get it from other museums in New York, the museum has to be compromised. And the second question is, when you select the words, very interesting question. The first one, very briefly mentioned at the beginning, when I came in as a project curator last March, I had already done the selection. So it was very easy for me. We actually had too many. It will be even now with those almost 80 works, quite a dense exhibition. For us, the reason why the creators, there, in particular, and Jane Finkel and I wrote together with who have been of tremendous support, they really wanted to show these three generations and had the vision to also then end the exhibition with a piece of the current generation. I think the selection was already great. I was still able to change and shift. There are here and there maybe kind of gaps in the urban, maybe because she's of course, she did some really quite beautiful floral views as well. To find some, maybe, to work on the inspiration from her mother in law. No, but generally, it was for me very easy to really already work with this great selection that the creator of the selection has done. It may bother, catering to the British audience. Not really. I think because there is no exhibition, no example here in the UK before. Of course, I used exhibition catalogs from those previous American collections and also from Japanese special shows that take place in the past. For me, it was important to really show the history, to show the connections among those members. This continuity, the change that took place, it is really sort of an initial introduction of that family to the UK audience. That is quite challenging because how far do I go back in explaining about the history of footprint thinking, for example, or all these various societies today, those sprints of fares and government exhibitions also were happening in Japan that they were involved with. That is kind of a challenge of how far do you go back to address that. On the other hand, it was then really nice for the catalog to introduce each artist briefly and then write exceptions and explanations for some of the works and particular those pairings that can of course then combine nicely. Now it is really sort of to give really an introduction to that family and I don't think I would have come in from Germany, for example, I don't think I would have addressed it and prepared it in a different way for a journal, I don't think so. Of course it is nice now here with that starting point of Hiroshi's visit to Dalic with the signature in the visitor book. What we won't be showing before we focus on prints, they did produce watercolours of the travels around the UK Hiroshi and then later with Fuji as well after we visited these fellow artists. So we do have some wonderful watercolours of scenes of Laurie Carson, for example, that then I will be visiting those sites much here. So of course that would have been a different angle and might also be a future MA or PhD dissertation maybe an interesting thing to work on maybe, yeah, that line to showcase maybe their best connection with the UK, with England in the watercolour. So I don't think there is a special connection here that we have with Hiroshi and visiting the gallery and having travelled here. So that is of course some sort of pieces that I explain, but apart from that I don't think I would have, yeah, it must be different for Germany more. No, we're very good, thank you. Thank you. Last question or two more questions, please. Just a short follow up as you were touching the topic of audience, will the labels and all the catalogue be in one of England? These are the captions that I've used here are the ones that I also prepared for the catalogue and they go further I haven't included that yet, so in the catalogue you see each detail, I mean prints are so rich of information, the signatures, the titles that they have given, what kind of titles are they in English or in Katakana, so all this information is in the catalogue but generally the catalogue is given, but yeah, all the information that you draw from a print they are also Thank you. Thank you very much for your stimulating presentation, I learned a lot today. This is just my impression, but I learned I got the impression in the presentation today that Yoshida family made lots of landscape prints some of them are abstract but not so much of a new portrait or something like that I may be wrong, but if so what do you think is the reason? That's a very good question No, you're quite right, I mean I left out one piece by Toshi, which is called The Third, and he also did it's in that white line type of technique without a black key block, he produced a set of three figurative prints The reason I think is I would explain it in that way the dominance of the first master Hiroshi being that famous master of landscape prints I think that is a certain continuity that shows in all generations and all members of the family, I mean the strongest departure you can certainly see with Fodaka but even in her print anticipation there are some figurative elements that she played with but generally you're quite right landscape was certainly the strongest inspiration for all of them, landscape all mentioned, which is very good Thank you very much, this brings us to the end of this evening please join us in the senior common room where we will have wine and some crisps, so you can continue your questions, if you come from the outside of Sawas please latch on to somebody who has a cart security is very fine, and also remember you won't be able to leave simply once we've got we'll get you in the room, we don't let you go normally but please ask somebody to help you out so please join us upstairs first floor in the senior common room and do return next week when we have a panel discussions on Miyazaki Hayo's latest film The Boys and the Heron with Sadona Suzuki, Fibiko Cervelli Thank you very much for coming Thank you