Tōgō Seiji

Tōgō Seiji, 1954

Tōgō's grave in Tokyo

Tōgō Seiji ( Japanese 東 郷 青 児 ; April 28, 1897 in Kagoshima - April 25, 1978 ), real name Tetsuharu ( 鉄 春 ), was a Japanese painter in the Yōga style .

life and work

Seiji was born as the eldest son of Tōgō Tetsuzō. When he was five years old, his family moved to Tokyo, where he was a classmate of the later Yōga painter Hayashi Takeshi (1896-1975) in the Yochōmachi elementary school in the Ushigome district . While attending the middle school of Aoyama Gakuin, he decided to become a painter. After graduating from school in 1914, he was able to use a room in the Akasaka Institute of the Tokyo Philharmonic, directed by Yamada Kōsaku , and began to paint. “Playing the double bass” ( コ ン ト ラ バ ス を 弾 くKontorabasu o hiku ) and other works belong to this period.

That same year, Seiji opened an exhibition at the Hibiya Art Museum , with his painting in a cubist manner catching the attention of Arashima Ikuma. At his request, Seiji joined the Nika-kai artists' association . In the following year he presented the picture "Woman with a Parasol" ( パ ラ ソ ル さ せ る 女 Parasoru saseru onna ), which earned him the Nika Prize.

In 1919, Seiji went to France, where he met the Dadaists and poets Tristan Tzara and Philippe Soupault . In 1921 he visited the founder of Futurism Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in Turin and attended his events. During that time he painted the picture "Man wearing a hat" ( 帽子 を か ぶ る 男 Bōshi o kaburu otoko ). But futurism did not convince him and so returned to Paris disappointed after sojourns in Nice and Lyon .

In 1928, Seiji returned to Japan on the Siberian Railway , soon showed 34 works in a special exhibition and received the Shōwa Art Promotion Prize ( 昭和 美術 奨 励 章 Shōwa bijtsu shōrei-shō ). In 1930 he was accepted as a member of the Nika-kai, whereupon he took care of the reorganization of society with all his energy. In 1960 he was elected President, a position he exercised with great energy and unconventionally and which he held until his death.

In 1956 he finished his wall painting "Song of Creation" ( 創 生 の 歌 Sōsei no uta ), received the Academy Art Prize for his work the following year. Other well-known works are "Heimweh" ( 望 郷 Bōkyō ; 1959) and "Tassili" (1976). While his early works are determined by his stay in Europe, Seiji found his personal style with his slightly cubist, sparingly colored figure pictures.

In 1960 he became a member of the Japanese Academy of Arts and in the following years he received a number of awards for the international exchange he pursued in the field of art, among others. a. as Officier des Arts et Lettres by the French government, in Japan the distinction as a person with special cultural merits .

Most of his works are exhibited in the Seiji Togo Memorial Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Museum of Art , which opened in 1976 .

Seiji is buried in the Zōshigaya cemetery in Tokyo.

literature

• Japanese painting in the western style, 19th and 20th centuries. Exhibition catalog. Japan Foundation (Ed.), Cologne, 1985.
• Kindai Nihon no bijutsu. Exhibition catalog. National Museum of Modern Art , 1984.
• Tazawa Yutaka: Biographical Dictionary of Japanese Art . Kodansha International, 1981, ISBN 0-87011-488-3 .
• Laurance P. Roberts: A Dictionary of Japanese Artists. Weatherhill, 1976, ISBN 0-8348-0113-2 .

Web links

• Seiji Tōgō Memorial Museum

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