Photo of the artist c. 1934
Shimada Bokusen, born Shimada Toyo (Yutaka) 島田豊, was the son and pupil of Maruyama school painter Shimada Sekkoku (1828-1884), a retainer of the Fukui fief in Echizen. Bokusen was to go on to study with Hashimoto Gahō (1835-1908) a Kanō school painter who was instrumental in the development of a new type of national painting called nihonga. He was a member of the Nihon Bijutsuin (Japan Art Institute) and in 1925 became a committee member of the Teiten (Imperial Academy of Fine Arts). In 1942 he received the Imperial Art Academy Prize. He specialized in portraits of historical figures, working in a revived yamato-e style.
Shimada taught Japanese-style painting to several Western artists including Henry P. Bowie (1848-1920), author of On the Laws of Japanese Painting, and the well known painter and printmaker Lillian May Miller (1895-1943) who "greatly admired Bokusen for his support and his personality, writing, 'He's so keen and full of vitality, and yet so clean and quiet and sweet-natured.'"1
Several examples of the artist's Japanese color on silk paintings are shown below.
Other than this collection's two prints, I have not come across any other woodblock prints by the artist.
Portrait of Count Tanaka Seizan
田中青山伯影像, 1928
147.5 x 71 cm
color on silk
Waseda Univesity Library
チ03 03535 0154
Portrait of Soko Yamaga, 1942
144.8×85.8 cm
color on silk
The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
J00254
墨仙 Bokusen with 墨仙 Bokusen seal
墨仙 Bokusen with 墨仙 Bokusen seal
1 "Lilian Miller: An American Artist in Japan" by Kendall H. Brown appearing in Impressions, No. 27 (2005-2006), p. 82.
last update:
11/28/2023
3/29/2019 created
click on thumbnail for print details