Yamamura Kōka (1886-1942)
A Beauty c. 1920-30
Signed: Kōka kore o zusu ; sealed: Toyonari
Hanging scroll; ink, color and gold on silk
63 ½ x 16 ¼ inches (161 x 41 cm)
Tomobako signed Kōka dai and sealed Kōka
A beauty moves gracefully along to a tryst, or is she returning from a cool summer stroll along the river banks? The ukiyoe print artist Katsukawa Bunchō (1760’s – 70’s) often pictured the famous Osen of the Kagiya teahouse in a fine striped kimono and Katsukawa Shunchō (late 1770’s-90’s) also favored stripes in his depictions of beauties and kabuki heroines. Undoubtedly Kōka had these or similar prints in mind when he painted this beauty.
Yamamura Kōka pursued a colorful and varied career in art. He worked as a stage-set designer, sometimes as an appraiser, and was known as a collector and connoisseur of ukiyoe, dolls, ceramics and lacquer ware; he traveled to China and was interested in Western painters such as Matisse, Corot, Millet and Rousseau. Influenced by the traditional ukiyoe paintings of beauties (bijinga), he modernized them with a new, simplified color palette that reflected his contact with Western art.
Kōka’s first recognition as an artist came at the early age of fifteen in 1900, when he won third place for his painting Tabi no ume (Plum Blossoms on the Road) at the 9th Joint Painting Exhibition of the Japan Painting Society and the Japan Art Society. After first studying under Ogata Gekkō (1889-1920) he entered the Tokyo School of Fine Arts (Tōkyō Bijutsu Gakkō) and from the time of his graduation in 1907, when he exhibited in the first Bunten Exhibition (of which Gekkō was a founding member) and also won an award, his paintings were well received in concurrent art circles. He continued to exhibit in the Bunten exhibitions of 1910 and 1913-15. In the fourth Bunten (1910) he won a prize for his painting Ōmiyabito. He joined the Ugōkai (Flocking Birds Society), a group of artists who attempted to create new paintings of customs and fashions incorporating ukiyoe traditions. He also exhibited in the Bijutsu Kenseikai (Art Cultivation Society) and Sangokai (Coral society) exhibitions.
In 1916 he joined the Shinhanga Undō (New Print Movement) together with Itō Shinsui and others and became a member of Nihon Bijutsu Inten and exhibited that year in the third Inten. Thereafter he exhibited mainly at the Inten shows, his major works being Hassaku, 1917, Chōyō, 1918, Saigyō Senshūshō, 1920, Kōnan nanashu, 1921, Rakuyō-kyō, 1923, Fujin aikin, 1925, Gundarimyōō, 1926
and Yōkyoku gensō: Sumidagawa, Tamura, 1930. Following in his teacher’s footsteps (Gekkō had been an illustrator during the first Sino-Japanese War, (1894-1895) Kōka traveled to China. (His first trip might have been in connection with the Hōchi Shinbunsha which he joined in 1907). Many of his works created for the Inten exhibits incorporate the impressions of that experience.
After meeting the print publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō in the 1920s, Kōka did a series of actor prints, as well as bird and flower images and also lithographs under the name of Toyonari. Some were exhibited at the Toledo Museum in 1930. During the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945, Kōka accompanied the army to China and later two of his paintings produced as a result of that trip, Nanshi Suwato jōkūyori (The Sky over Suwato in Southern China) and Nanshi Komon dōjichō (Birds at the Tiger Gate in Southern China) were presented to the imperial family from the Ministry of the Army.
Paintings and prints by Kōka are in the collections of the Noma Hōkōkai Foundation, the Riccar Art Museum, Yokohama Museum of Art and the Honolulu Museum of Art, among others.
Click on any image for an enlarged view.
