Yoshida

This catalogue, the fi rst of its kind in the UK, accompanying the 2024 exhibition at
Dulwich Picture Gallery, explores the important contribution to Japanese woodblock
printing of the Yoshida family, from patriarch Hiroshi down to the current
generation, led by Yoshida Ayomi. The story of the Yoshida family has been woven
into the story of Japanese printmaking across two centuries, with each generation
infusing this traditional art form with their sensitivity and imagination.
Trained as a painter and watercolourist, Yoshida Hiroshi (1876–1950) was a pioneer of
the shin hanga artistic movement, which revived the traditional ukiyo-e prints (‘pictures
of the floating world’) focusing on beautiful landscapes and landmarks and combined
them with Western influences. His incredible corpus of woodblock prints, inspired by
his travels across Japan but also in Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa and North America,
greatly contributed to the popularity of Japanese prints in the West. A rare instance
in the early twentieth-century Japanese art world, the Yoshida legacy relies also on
the important contribution of its women: first Fujio (1887–1987), Hiroshi’s wife, a
watercolourist, painter and printmaker, who was the first Japanese woman artist to gain
international acclaim. Her style developed over time from naturalism towards greater
stylization and organic abstraction, with her late still lifes strikingly balancing boldness
and sensuality.
Toshi (1911–1995) and Hodaka (1926–1995), Hiroshi and Fujio’s sons, represent the
second generation of this artistic dynasty; Toshi introduced post-war abstraction to the
Japanese printmaking process, while Hodaka pushed these modernist instances further,
achieving a unique personal style inspired by the sosaku hanga movement of artistic
self-expression. His wife Chizuko (1924–2017) co-founded the first group of female
printmakers in Japan, the Women’s Print Association. Her works sapiently connect
popular art movements like Abstract Expressionism with Japanese printmaking.
The youngest member of the Yoshida family is Ayomi (b. 1958), daughter of Hodaka
and Chizuko, whose practice bridges the gap between ukyio-e and contemporary art
thanks also to the exploration of organic materials. She has been exhibited at major
international institutions and will contribute an original installation to the Dulwich
show.