SHINODA TOKO
Lithograph with hand-painted brush strokes. 1913 – 2021, born Manchuria, China. Resided in Tokyo. Trained from age of six as a calligrapher.
Permanent Collections: Museum of Modern Art, New York;Guggenheim Museum, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; Albright Knox, New York; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Cincinnati Art Museum; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; Fogg Art Museum, Cambrige (US); British Museum, London; Singapore National Museum; Museum fuer Ostasiatische Kunst, Berlin; Museum Folkwang, Essen; Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art, Haifa; Rijksmuseum Kroeller-Mueller, Otterloo; Stadtisches Museum, Den Haag; Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu; Museum of Modern Art, Toyama; Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art ; Rockefeller Foundation Collection, New York; Chase Manhattan Bank Collection, New York; First National City Bank Collection, New York;Ford Foundation Collection, New York.
Shinoda is widely recognised as one of Japan’s greatest painters of the twentieth century. She first came to prominence in the 1960’s and 1970’s when she was discovered by the influential art dealer Betty Parsons, alongside works of artists such as Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock. Trained as a calligrapher, her preference is for the grey and black sumi (Japanese ink) strokes of colours against a field of white space. She ground her own ink in her house. There is great respect for spatial relationships in her sophisticated, deeply Japanese work.
Shinoda moved into lithography in the 1960’s which meant that her work became more available overseas despite her return to Japan. Lithography lent itself to Shinoda’s style, as she used her brushes directly on the plate or stone and could therefore be as spontaneous as in her paintings. She has written several short books which became bestsellers in Japan about her life’s learnings over the last century. She was also an accomplished poet and her works resonate her poetic sense. She died peacefully in 2021 in Tokyo at the age of 107 having inspired so many people.
