Wada Sanzō

BIOGRAPHY

Born on March 3, 1883 in Hyōgo prefecture in the western Kansai region of Honshu, the main Japanese island, Sanzō was the fourth son of Wada Bunken? (和田文硯), an official physician in the Kutsuki domain (current day Fukuchiyama City in Kyoto prefecture) who worked as a doctor at the Ikuno Mine and at an elementary school. One of Sanzō's elder brothers Shōzō studied Western painting at the Tokyo Bijutsu Gakkō (Tokyo School of Fine Arts), becoming friends with the painter Shirataki Ikunosuke (1873-1960), died prematurely at the age of 20.

In 1899, at the age of sixteen, and over the objection of his father, he dropped out of the Fukuoka Prefectural Shuyukan Middle School to study painting in Tokyo. Nagao Kenichi 長尾建吉 (1860-1938), a lacquer craftsman and a creator of custom picture frames for painters (and possibly, also, Shirataki Ikunosuke) convinced the famous Western-style (yōga) oil painter Kuroda Seiki (1866-1924) to take on Sanzō as a houseboy and Wada was to study at Kuroda’s Hakubakai (White Horse Society), going on to attend the Tokyo School of Fine Arts in 1901, where he studied Western-style painting, graduating in 1904. In 1905 he exhibited and won an award at the 10th Hakubakai exhibition for his painting Bokujō no banki (Evening return at the pasture) and in 1907 he exhibited his painting Nampū (South Wind) winning the Second Prize (the highest award) at the first Ministry of Education art exhibition, Bunten.  South Wind garnered him early acclaim from critics and the public and was so well regarded that he was allowed to exhibit at future exhibitions without the usually required prior approval. 

"South Wind" - The Painting That Brough Wada Fame

South Wind was based upon an experience Wada had at the age of 19 off the coast of Izu in which he was cast ashore in a rainstorm.  The painting has been described as follows:

It is at once intimate and monumental; the viewer is on a small fishing boat, a trade with strong cultural resonance in Japan and one that lacks any of the trappings of Western-style modernity. However, the central figure stands tall, dominating the scene with a muscular torso and solid legs and arms, feet planted firmly and confidently on the deck, and his gaze set towards the horizon. The style of his figure clearly uses Western classical art as a model (the nose in particular seems for more Roman or Greek than Japanese), but the scene is so intimately Japanese that the image was embraced by the government and hung for many years in government buildings in Tokyo.1

Following another Second Prize at the Bunten in 1908 for his painting Ikun (Glowing/Red Smoke or Mighty Smoke), see picture and caption below, the Ministry of Education sent him to Europe in 1909 to study painting, craft and film, a tribute to Sanzō’s multiple creative talents. While in France, he became friendly with the artist Yamamoto Kanae (1882-1946), who is credited with creating the first sōsaku hanga (creative print). He remained in Europe seven years, until 1914, and returned home the following year via India, Burma and Java studying textiles and the art of those areas. He would return to India in 1916 to further study Indian art.

While trained in Western-style painting and spending almost seven years in Europe, Wada was committed to a Japanese interpretation and filtering of Western-style and in a May 1915 interview appearing in the art periodical Bijutsu shinpō, “advised Japanese artists strongly against a mere imitation of foreign styles simply because of their newness…”2  In the early 1920s, Wada also took up Japanese style painting (nihonga).

An Establishment Artist

It can be said that Wada was the epitome of an establishment artist, painting for the Imperial family, government and military.  In 1917, at the age of 34, he was named a juror for the government’s Bunten exhibitions and was to remain a juror through its successor organization, Teiten.    In 1927 he was appointed Member of the Imperial Art Academy (Teikoku Bijutsu-in) and in the same year started teaching at the prestigious Tokyo School of Fine Arts, where he taught until 1944.3 

As did many other artists, Wada contributed the designs for popular propaganda post cards, such as Tiger from 1938 and the earlier 1932 Success of Our Artillery below, as well as murals and paintings that supported Japanese aggression in Asia.

From 1943-1945, during WWII, he served as co-president of the Japan Art Patriotic Association (Nihon Bijutsu Hōkokukai), which was set up by the Ministry of Education in an attempt to control the creative output of the country’s artists and put it in the service of its war-time ideology.4 The Association sent artists “to the fronts to paint the glories of the imperial forces and to decorate military and naval installations, donating their talents to the war effort…”5 

After the war Wada became known for his woodblock prints, particularly the series Japanese Vocations in Pictures that he began in the 1930s. (See “Print Work” below.)

In his later years he pursued both oil and nihonga (Japanese ink) painting, was active in crafts, designed tapestry theater curtains, and in 1958 he was chosen a Person of Cultural Merit by the Japanese government.

He died of pneumonia on August 22, 1967.

Pioneering Work in Color Theory and an Academy Award

While gaining fame through his early paintings, it is through his pioneering studies in color theory that Wada is perhaps best remembered. In 1927 he founded the Japan Standard Color Association.7  Its successor, the Japan Color Research Institute, of which he became chairman of in 1945, is still in operation today. His color theory work continues to be relevant today and in 2010 Sanzo Wada – A Dictionary of Color Combinations was published with the following summary notes from the publisher.

This book is a collection of 348 color combinations originated by Sanzo Wada (1883-1967) who, in that time of increasingly avant-garde and diversified use of color, was quick to focus on the importance of color and laid the foundation for contemporary color research. Sanzo Wada was active as an artist, art school instructor, costume designer for the movies and the theater, and kimono and fashion designer who employed his extensive and versatile talents to do innovative work that centered primarily on visual perception and form. - As quoted on the Library World OPAC website.

His work in color, textiles and film lead him into costume design and in 1955 he won an American Motion Picture Academy Award for color costume design for the film Gates of Hell, on which he also served as the director’s color consultant.8

Print Work

In 1925 Wada compiled Sōsaku Zuan Shū (A Collection of Creative Designs), published by Kokumin Tosho of Tokyo, a portfolio of 96 color collotypes in twelve volumes, which included his own designs and those of other artists. The portfolios are described as containing “a wide and inspired variety of creative designs heralding the Sosaku Hanga movement.”9 (See examples above.)  This may well have been his earliest foray into print design. 

Occupations of the Shōwa Era in Pictures