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Yasuo Kuniyoshi
1889–1953
Death placeNew York, New York, United States of America
BirthplaceOkayama, Japan
BiographyThe Japanese-American artist Yasuo Kuniyoshi enjoyed a successful 40-year career as a highly-acclaimed modernist painter, printmaker, and photographer. His work has been widely exhibited throughout the United States and Japan during and after his lifetime. In the 1910s Kuniyoshi studied with renowned teachers Robert Henri and Kenneth Hayes Miller and worked alongside George Bellows, John Sloan, Reginald Marsh, and others at the Art Students League in New York. Miller instilled in him an appreciation for the work of the Old Masters, but Kuniyoshi was also influenced by the friendship and patronage of critic, collector, and Japanese art specialist Hamilton Easter Field (1873–1922). He spent his winters in New York City and his summers at artists' colonies in Ogunquit, Maine, and Woodstock, New York, building a wide network of friends and patrons. He became a popular teacher and lecturer, served on juries for art exhibitions, and was appointed leadership positions in several arts and artists’ advocacy groups.
Born in 1889 in Okayama, Japan, Yasuo Kuniyoshi immigrated to the United States when he was sixteen years old. He studied art in Los Angeles before moving to New York City in 1910, where he studied painting more formally and began to exhibit his work. He married his first wife, artist Katherine Schmidt (1899–1978) in 1919 and they each took jobs to sustain their artistic practices; Kunyoshi taught himself photography and supported himself by photographing other artist’s work. Kuniyoshi’s early painting fused Japanese and European modernist styles with the sensibilities of American folk art, which was championed by Hamilton Easter Field and other progressive artists and collectors at the time. The first exhibition of folk art in the United States, held at the Whitney Studio Club in 1924, featured objects from Kuniyoshi’s personal collection. Throughout the 1930s Kuniyoshi’s reputation rose, and his style shifted away from the imaginative, occasionally humorous early paintings to more realistic and modeled portraits and still lifes that revealed his complex wit and personality. In 1932 he divorced Katherine Schmidt and married his second wife, Sara Mazo (1910–2006), in 1935. Kuniyoshi steadily gained respect for his work, exhibiting in solo and group shows and receiving favorable critical attention. He was often mentioned alongside other influential contemporary artists such as Stuart Davis, Charles Demuth, and John Marin.
As an immigrant, Kuniyoshi’s life and career, firmly planted in the United States, was edged with the tension of belonging. Japanese citizens were not allowed to apply for United States citizenship until 1952, the year before he died, but Kuniyoshi’s only return trip to Japan, in 1931, solidified for him his identification with the life he had assiduously built as an American artist. However, following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, his life radically changed, and the mood of his paintings changed as well. The artist was declared an “enemy alien” by the United States government, and despite the support of an influential circle of friends and fellow artists, his daily activities became severely restricted. Among other impediments, Kuniyoshi was required to observe a curfew; forced to surrender his camera, depriving him of income; and was not allowed to travel without permission. By this time, however, he had become one of the most well-known Japanese artists working in the United States, teaching and continuing to exhibit his work, which had become mysterious and brooding, evocative of his anxieties stemming from the war. In spite of the constrictions imposed on his daily life, Kuniyoshi continued to paint while actively engaging in the war effort for the Allied forces, making speeches for pro-democracy organizations and designing prints and propaganda for the U.S. Office of War Information.
In 1948, museum directors and curators in the United States ranked Kuniyoshi third in their list of the ten most outstanding contemporary American painters in a feature in Look magazine. That same year, Kuniyoshi became the first living artist to have a retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Terra Foundation's Boy with Cow was included. Kuniyoshi spent the years after the war teaching, lecturing, and devoting himself to advocacy organizations that supported and protected the rights and status of artists. He died of stomach cancer in 1953.
Born in 1889 in Okayama, Japan, Yasuo Kuniyoshi immigrated to the United States when he was sixteen years old. He studied art in Los Angeles before moving to New York City in 1910, where he studied painting more formally and began to exhibit his work. He married his first wife, artist Katherine Schmidt (1899–1978) in 1919 and they each took jobs to sustain their artistic practices; Kunyoshi taught himself photography and supported himself by photographing other artist’s work. Kuniyoshi’s early painting fused Japanese and European modernist styles with the sensibilities of American folk art, which was championed by Hamilton Easter Field and other progressive artists and collectors at the time. The first exhibition of folk art in the United States, held at the Whitney Studio Club in 1924, featured objects from Kuniyoshi’s personal collection. Throughout the 1930s Kuniyoshi’s reputation rose, and his style shifted away from the imaginative, occasionally humorous early paintings to more realistic and modeled portraits and still lifes that revealed his complex wit and personality. In 1932 he divorced Katherine Schmidt and married his second wife, Sara Mazo (1910–2006), in 1935. Kuniyoshi steadily gained respect for his work, exhibiting in solo and group shows and receiving favorable critical attention. He was often mentioned alongside other influential contemporary artists such as Stuart Davis, Charles Demuth, and John Marin.
As an immigrant, Kuniyoshi’s life and career, firmly planted in the United States, was edged with the tension of belonging. Japanese citizens were not allowed to apply for United States citizenship until 1952, the year before he died, but Kuniyoshi’s only return trip to Japan, in 1931, solidified for him his identification with the life he had assiduously built as an American artist. However, following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, his life radically changed, and the mood of his paintings changed as well. The artist was declared an “enemy alien” by the United States government, and despite the support of an influential circle of friends and fellow artists, his daily activities became severely restricted. Among other impediments, Kuniyoshi was required to observe a curfew; forced to surrender his camera, depriving him of income; and was not allowed to travel without permission. By this time, however, he had become one of the most well-known Japanese artists working in the United States, teaching and continuing to exhibit his work, which had become mysterious and brooding, evocative of his anxieties stemming from the war. In spite of the constrictions imposed on his daily life, Kuniyoshi continued to paint while actively engaging in the war effort for the Allied forces, making speeches for pro-democracy organizations and designing prints and propaganda for the U.S. Office of War Information.
In 1948, museum directors and curators in the United States ranked Kuniyoshi third in their list of the ten most outstanding contemporary American painters in a feature in Look magazine. That same year, Kuniyoshi became the first living artist to have a retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Terra Foundation's Boy with Cow was included. Kuniyoshi spent the years after the war teaching, lecturing, and devoting himself to advocacy organizations that supported and protected the rights and status of artists. He died of stomach cancer in 1953.