Hongō Shin

Gateway to Ice and Snow ( Wakkanai )

Voice ( Middelheim Museum )

Hongō Shin ( Japanese 本 郷 新 ; born December 9, 1905 , in Sapporo ; died February 13, 1980 ) was a Japanese sculptor of the Shōwa period .

life and work

Hongō Shin was born into a Christian family in Sapporo. Since the end of his school days he was interested in carving and modeling and therefore took up studies in the sculpture department of the Tōkyō Technical High School ( Tōkyō kōtō kōgei gakkō ) in 1925 . After graduating in 1928 he became a student of the sculptor Takamura Kōtarō ( 高 村 光 太郎 ; 1883–1956) and was able to do his first work "Head of a Woman" ( 女 の 首 Onna no kubi ) at an exhibition of the Kokuga-kai ( 国画 会 ) demonstrate. In 1934, when he became a member of the Kokuga-kai, he developed a keen interest in large-scale monuments and began to work in this direction. In 1939 he left the Kokuga-kai and joined his friends Yanagihara Yoshitatsu , Funakoshi Yasutake and others and founded with them the sculpting department of the "New Creative Association" ( 新 制作 協会 Shin seisaku kyōkai ).

Hongō lived in Nara during the Pacific War and was busy making a copy of the famous statue of the Chinese monk Ganjin in the Tōshōdai-ji temple . After the war, he took part in the peace movement and produced a work entitled Wadatsumi ( わ だ つ み 像 ), a memorial plaque for students who died in the war.

Hongō then visited many countries to study the works and ideals of socialist realism. In 1953, his wooden statue entitled “Weeping” ( Koku ), which he exhibited at the “Japan International Art Exhibition”, received an award. The following year, his group of figures "Mother and Child in the Storm" ( 嵐 の 中 の 母子 像 Arashi no naka no boshu-zō ) from 1953 was set up in the Hiroshima Peace Park . In 1967 Hongō exhibited three works at the "International Modern Sculpture Exhihibtion" in the Middelheim Museum in Antwerp. A sculpture of the three, “Voice”, became part of the museum's collection. Other works by him are "Woman, holding a bird" ( 鳥 を 抱 く 女 Tori o daku onna ) and the great "Gate to ice and snow" ( 氷雪 の 門 Hyōsetsu no mon ) in Wakkanai , the northernmost place in Japan.

Hongō remained active in the production of large sculptures until the end of his life.

Remarks

1. ↑ Listed by Tazawa as “the youth's wall” ( 少年 の 壁 , Shōnen no kabe ).

literature

• Tazawa, Yutaka: Hongō Shin . In: Biographical Dictionary of Japanese Art . Kodansha International, 1981, ISBN 0-87011-488-3 .

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Hongō is the family name, Shin the first name.