F. Yoshida's Flowers

         Fujio Yoshida (Japan, 1887-1987) came from a family of artists, but was the first woman in the family to work as an artist.  I saw a couple of her color woodblock prints of flowers at the Harvard Art Museums last year, and enjoyed them.  They obviously have a lot in common with the flower paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe, with whom Yoshida was an almost exact contemporary.  I don’t know of any statement of direct influence, but given that Yoshida travelled to the United States for shows at just around the time O’Keeffe was exhibiting her earliest enlarged flower paintings, it seems very likely that Yoshida would be aware of them.  However, it was not until 1949 that Yoshida began making her own abstract flower paintings, for which she would place flowers inside a glass fishbowl in order to magnify them.

        The woodblock prints came in 1953.  These pieces are certainly not as large as O’Keeffe’s canvases, but they are larger than life, and share the same sense of abstraction.  At first glance they could be purely abstract, but then you can see how they’re actually zoomed-in views.  It’s interesting to see the traditional Japanese printmaking methods used for such a different style of art.

        I don’t like the dull colors of this narcissus as much, but I do appreciate that it’s an interesting choice, especially compared to the particularly bright greens of the ladyslipper orchid.  I also like that Yoshida has chosen to show the flower from the back, rather than the stereotypical front view.

        I’ve featured woodblock prints by some other member of the Yoshida family in previous posts.  You can see a street scene by her husband Hiroshi here.  Hiroshi had been adopted by her father to be the successor of the family’s art tradition, because of course it couldn’t be a girl.  But after her father died Hiroshi enrolled her in art school and they held joint exhibitions together.  You can see one of his Sailboats here, and Garden in Summer here.  The couple had two sons, both of whom also became artists.  You can see a strange alien city by Tōshi Yoshida here.

        As for Fujio herself, I like how different these flower details are from anything her artistic father or husband had done, although her second son’s abstract work was apparently an influence on her.  Anyway, I love O’Keefe’s flowers, and I like these, as well.

[Pictures: Ladyslipper Orchid, woodblock print by Fujio Yoshida, 1954;

Flowering Kale, woodblock print by Yoshida, 1953;

Narcissus, woodblock print by Yoshida, 1954 (All images from Harvard Art Museums).]