Toko Shinoda and Her Achievements: “Lithography“

Toko Shinoda

October 20 (Wed.) to December 16 (Thu.), 2021

Information

Number of items exhibited

25

Period

October 20 (Wed.) to December 16 (Thu.), 2021

Closed

2nd and 4th Saturdays, Sundays, national holidays

Admission

Free

About the Exhibition

The “Toko Shinoda and Her Achievements” series looks back on the artist’s century-long career to review the numerous works produced along the way. This third part of the series sheds light on Toko Shinoda’s lithography, which has a look and attraction distinct from her abstract sumi ink paintings.
She began creating lithographs on the advice of American master printer Arthur Flory (1914–1972), who had come to Japan from Philadelphia in 1960. Entrusting the printing to Kihachi Kimura (1934–2014) from 1963 onward, she produced a total of over 1,000 lithographs in her career.
The infinite vastness and variation of shades, the rhythms of her brushwork, and other expressions of sumi ink painting are reproduced in her lithographs through a tarashikomi technique of application of ink and water, a delicate mixture of ink colors, and overprinting. Her brush work on each of the final-printed sheets enlivens and freshens the inorganic, oil-based-ink surface for the distinctive feature of Toko lithographs.
The present exhibition looks closely at her encounters with two talented printers and her collaboration with them, probing the secret of the allure and art of her lithography.