Kataoka Tamako (1905-2008)
Sakazuki (Sake Cup), early 1950s
Signed: Tamako
Sealed: Tamako
Framed: Color on silk
22 x 20 inches (56×51 cm)
Authentication certificate by Tokyo Bijutsu Kurabu dated 2007.
Kataoka Tamako pursued studying nihonga while working for thirty years as an elementary school teacher, and eventually became one of the most individualistic nihonga artists of her generation.
Born in Sapporo, Hokkaidō, Tamako studied nihonga at the Women’s Special School of Art (Joshi Bijutsu Senmon Gakkō) and later became a pupil of Nakajima Kiyoshi, a painter affiliated with the Japan Art Institute. After several rejections by the Teiten, her work was first accepted by the Japan Art Institute’s Inten exhibition in 1930. Subsequently, the Institute became the center of her artistic growth under the guidance of Yasuda Yukihiko and Kobayashi Kokei. In 1952, Tamako joined the Institute as its member and began teaching at the Women’s Special School of Art, her alma mater. The 1960s saw the full blossoming of Tamako’s art with parallel explorations of landscapes inspired by famous volcanoes, and Tsuragamae (Visages), a portrait series of historical personages. Tamako developed the Tsuragamae theme for the next two decades, her subjects varying from ukiyoe master Katsushika Hokusai to the Muromachi shogun Ashikaga Takauji. Both the landscape and figure paintings of her mature period reveal a penchant for dramatic subjects that she translated into powerful visual images both decorative and expressive. In her lifetime, Tamako received numerous awards and honors, culminating with the Order of Cultural Merit in 1989.
From early in her artistic career, Tamako established a distinct style characterized by genuine naiveté and a seeming lack of refinement. Upon learning the comment that criticized her work as getemono (“inferior” or “bizarre”), Kobayashi Kokei, one of her mentors at the Institute, advised Tamako not to change her painting style because the line between a getemono and a true masterpiece was thin. Indeed in her Tsuragamae series, considered an archetypical work within her oeuvre, she rejected the classic trend typical of the genre and created thoroughly unconventional portraits animated by distortion and exaggeration.
Although a relatively early work, Sakazuki displays Tamako’s strong artistic personality and foretells her mature style. The traditional coiffure, white skin, and gorgeous kimono are all attributes of classical beauty, but Tamako pivots away from the straightforward celebration of feminine beauty by resorting to rough line, strong composition, and vibrant color. The most revealing element of this painting is the woman’s hand. In contrast to the delicate subjects often portrayed in bijinga (paintings of beautiful women), Tamako’s figure shows a large, robust hand holding a sake cup in a completely unorthodox way. Whatever the lady is pondering, a lost lover, a victory against adversity…..a sense of sadness prevails, yet defiance is apparent. This is conveyed in the artist’s brilliant mastery of line, whose simplicity and strength are used to show emotions that reinforce this point. One swift stroke forcefully encompasses the hand, and in contrast, fingers of an extraordinary length are delicately outlined. An economy of strokes follow suit in the remainder of the painting while soft tendrils of hair cradle the face to complete the pervasive mood of the painting mirrored in the single falling autumn leaf. The blue-and-yellow sake cup distills the colors of her kimono and functions as the visual fulcrum of this superbly balanced composition, binding together the woman’s thought provoking gaze and the cup.
Tamako’s paintings are in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura and Hayama; Setagaya Art Museum, and Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, among others.
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