Inagaki Toshijiro (稲垣稔二郎) (March 3, 1902 June 10, 1963) was a Japanese

katazome is a Japanese method of dyeing fabrics using a resist paste applied through a stencil, typically a rice flour mixture applied with a brush or a tool such as a palette knife. Unlike , stencils are used repeatedly to make a repeating pattern. P ...

artist. His given name is also sometimes read as "Nenjiro".

Early life and education

Inagaki was born in Kyoto to Takejiro Inagaki, a painter. He was the second child, and his older brother was Chusei Inagaki. He studied at the

Kyoto City University of Arts (/Kyoto Univ. of Arts). The official abbreviated name is Kyōgei. is a public, municipal university of general art and music in Kyoto, Japan. Established in 1880, it is Japan's oldest university of the arts (the predecessor of Tokyo Universi ...

, and graduated in 1922.

Career

After graduation, Inagaki worked at the

Matsuzakaya (Tokyo Stock Exchange, TYO: 8235, delisted) is a major Japanese Depato, department store chain operated by Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores, a subsidiary of J. Front Retailing. When the chain was an independent company, , it had its headq ...

department store, where he learned to dye cloth. He left the department store in 1931 to focus on his art. In 1938, he began to dye screen paintings using the yuzen method of dyeing. He won an award at the Kokugakai exhibition in 1940, but he entered the spotlight when one of his paintings was selected at the Nitten exhibition in 1941. He was selected twice more after that. After World War II, he left the Kokugakai and formed the Shinsho Bijutsu Kogei Kai with

Tomimoto Kenkichi was a Japanese potter and a Living National Treasure (Japan), Living National Treasure. Biography His family came from Nara Prefecture, Nara prefecture. He received a commission to design a large Japanese-lacquered zelkova shelf called “ki ...

. He then began dyeing using the katazome method in 1948, and continued to do so for the rest of his life. He was appointed a professor at his alma mater, the Kyoto City University of Arts, in 1958. He was designated a Living National Treasure in 1962, a year before his death from cancer on June 10, 1963. His work is held by the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...

and the Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art.

Style

His style has been criticized as being too traditional, especially when compared with Chusei's paintings. While Chusei bucked tradition by painting in a realist style, Toshijiro painted nature and famous places in a more typical

nihonga ''Nihonga'' () is a Japanese style of painting that typically uses mineral pigments, and occasionally ink, together with other organic pigments on silk or paper. The term was coined during the Meiji period (1868–1912) to differentiate it from ...

style. The brothers works were shown together at an exhibit at the

National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto The is an art museum in Kyoto, Japan. This Kyoto museum is also known by the English acronym MoMAK (Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto). History The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (MoMAK) was initially created as the Annex Museum of the Nationa ...

in 2010. Inagaki made his dyes from plants gathered in the countryside surrounding

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

, and frequently painted the scenery he saw there.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Inagaki, Toshijiro 1902 births 1963 deaths Kyoto City University of Arts alumni Artists from Kyoto Japanese textile artists