Raymond "Ray" Kakuo Yoshida (October 3, 1930 – January 10, 2009) was an American artist known for his paintings and

collages Collage (, from the , "to glue" or "to stick together") is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assembly of different forms, thus creating a new whole. (Compare with pasti ...

, and for his contributions as a teacher at the

School of the Art Institute of Chicago The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a Private university, private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which gr ...

from 1959 to 2005. He was an important

mentor Mentorship is the patronage, influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the perso ...

of the

Chicago Imagists The Chicago Imagists are a group of representational artists associated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago who exhibited at the Hyde Park Art Center in the late 1960s. Their work was known for grotesquerie, Surrealism and complete i ...

, a group in the 1960s and 1970s who specialized in distorted, emotional representational art.Larry Finley, "Influential Figure in Chicago Art World: Teacher, Mentor to Artists in Imagism School of 1970s", ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily nonprofit newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has long held the second largest circulation among Chicago newspaper ...

,'' Monday, January 19, 2009 Born in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

, Yoshida returned there after 2005 when his health began to fail. He studied at the

University of Hawaii A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

, but was drafted into the army during the Korean War. Yoshida resumed his studies in Chicago, and received degrees from the

and

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York, United States. It was established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church but has been nonsectarian since 1920 ...

.Trevor Jensen, "Ray Yoshida, 1930-2009: Art Institute teacher was part of Chicago Imagists: Member of Chicago Imagists exhibited all over the country", ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...

,'' Saturday, January 17, 2009 Yoshida's paintings are strongly influenced by

comics a Media (communication), medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of Panel (comics), panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, Glo ...

and his personal collection of

folk art Folk art covers all forms of visual art made in the context of folk culture. Definitions vary, but generally the objects have practical utility of some kind, rather than being exclusively decorative art, decorative. The makers of folk art a ...

and

found objects A found object (a calque from the French ''objet trouvé''), or found art, is art created from undisguised, but often modified, items or products that are not normally considered materials from which art is made, often because they already have ...

. His collages are strongly graphic, placing "tiny, oddly shaped details of architecture, fabric, hairdos and other unidentifiable elements"Ken Johnson, "ART IN REVIEW; Ray Yoshida,"

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

, September 17, 1999 in ordered rows of fragments and tiers . Critic Ken Johnson called his collages "formally captivating, dreamily strange and comically absurd." Both he and his work are referred to as enigmatic, mysterious, and witty.Ken Johnson, "Ray Yoshida, Collage Artist, Painter and Teacher, Dies at 78," ''

'', Friday, January 16, 2009 As a professor, Yoshida was an influential mentor to a great number of artists, including Jimmy Wright, and many of the

Barbara Grad Barbara Grad (born 1950) is an American artist and educator, known for abstract, fractured landscape paintings, which combine organic and geometric forms, colliding planes and patterns, and multiple perspectives.Yau, John. ''Barbara Grad – FAQ: ...

Paul Lamantia Paul Christopher Lamantia (born 1938) is an American visual artist, known for paintings and drawings that explore dark psychosexual imagery.Adrian, Dennis. "Paul Lamantia," Catalogue essay, ''Paul Lamantia: Paintings and Drawings'', Cincinnati, OH ...

, and David Sharpe.Yau, John. ''Barbara Grad – FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions'', Catalogue, essay, Palm Beach, FL: Findlay Galleries, 2018.Warren, Lynn
''Art in Chicago 1945-1995''.
Museum of Contemporary Art, ed. Lynne Warren, New York: Thames and Hudson, 1996, p. 281–2. Retrieved August 31, 2018.

Works

Yoshida created paintings in the early 1960s, and developed the "comic collage" in the later years of this decade. He also made paintings that incorporated elements from the comics. During the 1960s as well he began to build his personal collection of objects and images by self-taught and folk artists, installing these at his home. In the early 1970s, he created works which often featured abstracted objects; his work from the mid-1970s to 1980s incorporated a stronger figural sense. Yoshida returned to comic collage pieces in the 1990s and early 2000s, and produced a series of oil paintings in his late years. ''Scamper'', in the collection of the

Honolulu Museum of Art The Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts) is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. It has one of the largest single co ...

, is an example of the artist's comic collage paintings.

Exhibitions

Yoshida had his first solo exhibition in 1960 at the Middle Hall Gallery in

Rockford, Illinois Rockford is a city in Winnebago County, Illinois, Winnebago and Ogle County, Illinois, Ogle counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. Located in far northern Illinois on the banks of the Rock River (Mississippi River tributary), Rock River, Rockfor ...

. His work was shown along with the

Imagists Imagism was a movement in early-20th-century poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. It is considered to be the first organized literary modernism, modernist literary movement in the English language. Imagism has bee ...

in the exhibition " Don Baum Sez ‘Chicago Needs Famous Artists" at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 1969. From 1971 through the 1990s, his work was regularly shown at the Phyllis Kind Gallery in Chicago and

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. A retrospective of Yoshida's art was held in 1998 at The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu (now the

Honolulu Museum of Art Spalding House The Honolulu Museum of Art Spalding House, formerly The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, was integrated into the Honolulu Museum of Art under this name. It was the only museum in the state of Hawaii devoted exclusively to contemporary art. The Contem ...

), the

Chicago Cultural Center The Chicago Cultural Center, opened in 1897, is a Chicago Landmark building operated by Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. The Cultural Center houses the city's official reception venue, where the Mayor of Chicago, M ...

, and the Madison Art Center (now the

Madison Museum of Contemporary Art The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA), formerly known as the Madison Art Center, is an independent, non-profit art museum located in downtown Madison, Wisconsin. MMoCA is dedicated to exhibiting, collecting, and preserving modern and c ...

) in

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It is the List of municipalities in Wisconsin by population, second-most populous city in the state, with a population of 269,840 at the 2020 Uni ...

. His last solo exhibition was in 1999 at the Adam Baumgold Gallery in New York. After his death, a retrospective exhibition was held at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's Sullivan Galleries
"Touch and Go: Ray Yoshida and His Spheres of Influence"
which ran from Nov. 13, 2010 - Feb. 12, 2011). In 2013, the exhibition
Ray Yoshida's Museum of Extraordinary Values
at John Michael Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan Wisconsin, displayed Yoshida's personal collection of over 2600 objects and artworks which was donated to the Kohler Foundation after his death.

Collections

Th
Art Institute of Chicago

Hawaii State Art Museum The Capitol Modern Museum, formerly (until 2023) named the Hawaii State Art Museum, is a small art gallery located on the second floor of the No. 1 Capitol District Building in downtown Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. Long known as HiSAM, the m ...

Museum of Contemporary Art, ChicagoSmithsonian American Art Museum
and

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...

in Washington, DC, are among the public collections holding work by Ray Yoshida. Th
papers
of Ray Yoshida are now held at the

Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washing ...

, part of the Smithsonian Institution.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Yoshida, Ray School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni American artists of Japanese descent American military personnel of Japanese descent 1930 births 2009 deaths