The UK’s first-ever exhibition devoted to a dynasty of master print artists has opened in a site-specific room specially created for the exhibition. The Yoshida family, starting with Yoshida Hiroshi (Hiroshi Yoshida in the Western name order), are considered some of the greatest 20th-century Japanese artists but are little known outside Japan.
As part of the Dulwich Picture Gallery’s ongoing programme of championing an artist or genre, they’ve brought together works from three generations of the Yoshida family, tracing the evolution of Japanese printmaking across two centuries.
In a way, this is a return, as Yoshida Hiroshi visited the gallery when he was visiting Europe in 1900, and signed the guest book — book carefully. You can see his signature on the page they’ve opened for the exhibition.
Over 20 works by Hiroshi, many never seen in the UK, open the exhibition, and it’s a curious mix of very obviously Japanese-looking art, mostly landscapes seen on their travels overseas. His wife, herself a renowned watercolourist, painter, and printmaker, is also represented here, showing off some of the works that challenged the conventions of the time, especially from a female artist.
Their sons, Toshi and Hodaka, were also artists and brought a fresh look with post-war abstraction to the Japanese printmaking process. Early on in his career, Yoshida Toshi followed in his father’s footsteps, depicting landscapes and cityscapes, but experimented with abstract prints after WWII.
Yoshida Hodaka was a leading printmaker in post-war Japan. Breaking from his family’s established style, he expanded upon traditional printmaking and incorporated collage and photoetching into his practice. Like his father and brother, foreign travels influenced his choice of motifs, but he was also inspired by Pop Art, Surrealism and Abstraction.
Yoshida Chizuko, who married Hodaka, was a co-founder of the first group of female printmakers in Japan and often depicted landscapes, nature, and traditional Japanese scenes but she also explored aspects of abstraction and repetition.
As an exhibition, it’s a curious mix of artworks that all feel to some degree to be Japanese but are so wide-ranging that you’d never otherwise guess they’re all by the same family line. There’s a lot to pick out as particularly interesting, and personally, I was drawn to Hodaka’s more modern works as to the sort of thing I would like in my home.
As a collection, it’s also a rare, indeed, first-ever chance to see the family represented as a single group in the UK.
Having walked through rooms filled with art on walls, it is time to walk into a room that has become art. For this exhibition, Hodaka’s and Chizuko’s daughter, Yoshida Ayomi, has created a new site-specific installation of cherry blossom inspired by the Cherry trees in Dulwich Village, originally taken from the iconic site of Yoshino in Japan, famous for its cherry blossom.
The exhibition, Yoshida: Three Generations of Japanese Printmaking is at Dulwich Picture Gallery open until 3rd November 2024.
Entry to the gallery and exhibition is £20 per adult.
The gallery is a short walk from North Dulwich or West Dulwich stations.
