Prints in Collection

click on image for details

Kishida Ryūsei, an established and well-known Western-style painter, seemed the perfect match for Nakagawa, with Kishida's own early works being heavily influenced by the post-impressionists, particularly Van Gogh and Cézanne. "Through Ryūsei, he came to know the novelists Mushakōji Saneatsu [武者小路実篤 (1885-1976)] and Shiga Naoya [志賀直哉 (1883-1971)], as well as other members of the Shirakaba group of intellectuals and artists."[5] While at least one source notes that Nakagawa would go on to study with Kishida, how formal this arrangement was is not known.[6] Nakagawa did live in the Kidshida household for a while and in 1915 he was asked to join the Sōdosha 草土社 (Grass and Soil Society), which had just been organized by Ryūsei and the painter Kimura Sōhachi 木村 荘八 (1893-1958) to exhibit the work of young artists. Their first exhibition in October 1915 included the 172 works by 23 artists and was held in the offices of the Yomiuri shinbun in Tokyo. Sōdosha would provide a forum for Nakagawa's continued exploration of the themes of humanism and modernism addressed by the White Birch Society (Shirakaba-ha). Writing in 1918, an unidentified correspondent for the journal The New East wrote that the work of the young painters in the Sōdosha Group "marks a distinct break with the traditions of Meiji" and that "the sobriety and obvious earnestness of the Sōdosha society's activity is worthy of notice, and it will be a matter of real interest to watch its development during the next few years."[7] Sōdosha would go on to stage nine exhibitions and in 1922 it would join with the department of Western-style painting of Nihon Bijutsuin (The Japan Art Institute) to form the Shun'yōkai 春陽会 (Spring Principle Association) , a "free and open" association of artists, still in operation today.[8]

In the years following his initial success, Nakagawa would continued to show his work with Sōdosha and its successor Shun'yōkai and at exhibitions of the Nika-kai 二科会 (Society of Progressive Japanese Artists). And his style continued to evolve, from a European Fauvism to his own individual style which incorporated elements of nanga (Japanese-style Chinese literati painting) with a strong color palette associated with Fauvism and his energetic brushstrokes. A style that has been described as "full of rich colors and abundant vitality."[9]

Other Medium

As we know, Nakagawa was more than a painter. He worked in other medium for his visual art including traditional ink calligraphy and mineral pigments (iwa-enogu  岩絵具). He collaborated with printers and publishers, such as Kyuryudo.求龍堂, for his various prints on paper (see "Prints" below), illustrated numerous written works, and created graphic designs for books. He studied the Chinese classics and calligraphy under the guidance of the Sinologist Kōda Rentarō 公田連太郎 (1874-1963) as a member of yōga artist Kosugi Hōan’s Rōsō-kai ⽼老荘会.[13] He wrote about and carved seals and created ceramic works. As a writer he left a canon of essays and poetry. Perhaps his most well-known and influential essay “Nihonga o dō miru” 日本画をどう見る was published in 1947 in the magazine Sansai, laying out his thoughts on the vitality of Western painting (yōga) versus tradition-bound Japanese-style painting (nihonga), summarized in the following quote from Matthew Larking's article "Death and the Prospects of Unification: Nihonga’s Postwar Rapprochements with Yōga."

Nakagawa's Prints

Nakagawa designed very few woodblock prints, with most of his prints being copperplate etchings, some printed using aquatint technique, and lithographs. A number of his prints, both lithographs and copperplate etchings, were created at the Kurumaki Studios 車木工房 in Nara, which specializes in lithographs and etchings.

It is unclear whether Nakagawa carved the blocks for his woodblock print designs. He knew seal carving so it would not be too much of a stretch for him to carve his own blocks if the designs were not overly complex. Of the artist's prints that I've seen described as woodblock prints, most of them were designed for book covers and book illustrations. This collection's woodblock print Woman Sitting on a Chair seems to be unique in that it attempts to duplicate his painting style, possibly replicating an existing painting (although a similar painting cannot be found online), rather than being a print whose design was done by the artist specifically for reproduction by woodblock, as in the case of his book cover designs. It is unlikely that Nakagawa carved the blocks for this portrait.

Woodblock Prints

Other Prints

Later Years

[1] Under the Meiji system middle schools were designed for entrance into the university rather than institutions for the general populace. Admission to the elementary schools was set at the age of eight to be completed at fifteen. The curriculum was made up mainly of general subjects: reading, calligraphy, arithmetic, foreign languages and geography. Students were to enter middle schools from the elementary schools at the age of sixteen and continue there for seven years. The middle schools were to offer specialized curricula similar to those of the university and serve as mechanism for selecting able students for the university. [source: Ministry of Education website https://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/hakusho/html/others/detail/1317235.htm]

[2] website of the Nakagawa Kazumasa Memorial Museum of Art 松任中川一政記念美術館 http://www.hakusan-museum.jp/nakagawakinen/about/

[3] Paris in Japan: The Japanese Encounter with European Painting; Takashima, Rimer and Bolas, The Japan Foundation and Washington University, 1987, p. 46.

[4] The title of his first work is also seen in English as “Rice Wine Storehouse.” It was originally titled Settsu Fukae (the location of the brewery.)

[5] Biographical Dictionary of Japanese Art, Yutaka Tazawa, Kodansha International, Ltd. in collaboration with the International Society for Educational Information, Inc., 1981, p. 183-184.

[6] Dictionary of Japanese Potters https://japanese-ceramics.com/nakagawa-kazumasa-%E4%B8%AD%E5%B7%9D%E4%B8%80%E6%94%BF/

[7] The New East, Vol. III, No. 1, Tokyo, July 1918, p. 213.

[8] see website of the Shun'yōkai https://shunyo-kai.or.jp/

[9] Nakagawa Kazumasa Memorial Museum of Art http://www.hakusan-museum.jp/nakagawakinen/about/

[10] my translation of passage of article お知らせ §今週の１点 vol.11 中川一政「山川呼応」1933年 §今週の１点 appearing on the website of the Nakagawa Kazumasa Memorial Museum website.  

[11] the German wiki for the artist https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakagawa_Kazumasa tells us that he served as a juror for the Teiten and that he served each year from 1938 until 1943. However, the name of the government sponsored exhibition had been changed in 1937 from Teiten to Shin Bunten. The timeline provided by the Hakusan Museum list his years as a judge at the Shin Bunten as 1941, 1943, 1944 and 1945, missing the 5th Shin Bunten in 1942.

[12] Various locations are given for Nakagawa's evacuation including the Izu Peninsula (article appearing on the website of the Bunshun Bookstore) and Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture (timeline compiled by the Hakusan Museum  中川一政 略年譜 1893 (明治26) 年－1991 (平成3)年 ("Biographical Chronology of Nakagawa Kazumasa 1893-1991," Tobuken's timeline of the artist lists the village of Miyatoko in Miyagi Prefecture, north-west of Sendai, as his residence when the war ended.

[13] Rethinking Japanese Modernism. Netherlands: Brill, 2011. p. 331;   At the beginning of the twentieth century, there was a trend of celebrating the great events and great historical figure of Chinese history among Japanese painters, writers, and sinologists. [source: "Traditionalism, Transnationalism, and Modernism in Fu Baoshi’s 1943 Paintings of the Red Cliff" by  Lin Li, a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of  Master of Arts in Department of East Asian Studies, University of Alberta, 2019, p. 55.]

last revision:

4-30-25 added alt text