Tomiyama Taeko
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Tomiyama Taeko (富山妙子, 6 November 1921 – 18 August 2021) was a Japanese visual artist and writer whose work addressed the moral, emotional, and social issues related to
nationalist Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...
,
patriarchal Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of authority are primarily held by men. The term ''patriarchy'' is used both in anthropology to describe a family or clan controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males, and in fem ...
, colonial, and
post-colonial Postcolonialism (also post-colonial theory) is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic consequences of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and thei ...
power structures in East Asia. Tomiyama used popular media such as
oil painting Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of painting with pigments combined with a drying oil as the Binder (material), binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas, wood panel, or oil on coppe ...
, lithographic prints,
collage 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 ...
s, multimedia
slideshows A slide show, or slideshow, is a presentation of a series of still images ( slides) on a projection screen or electronic display device, typically in a prearranged sequence. The changes may be automatic and at regular intervals or they may be ...
, books, and installations to explore marginalized figures. From the 1980s on, much of her work drew on indigenous Asian mythology, symbols, and aesthetics as a critique and rejection of the violent, exploitative, Euro-American-centric values embedded in modernist thinking. She was a devoted
feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...
,
leftist Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social hierarchies. Left-wing politi ...
, and
anti-nationalist Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Theory, Id ...
whose work told the stories of
miner A miner is a person who extracts ore, coal, chalk, clay, or other minerals from the earth through mining. There are two senses in which the term is used. In its narrowest sense, a miner is someone who works at the rock face (mining), face; cutt ...
s,
ethnic minorities The term "minority group" has different meanings, depending on the context. According to common usage, it can be defined simply as a group in society with the least number of individuals, or less than half of a population. Usually a minority g ...
,
comfort women Comfort women were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term ''comfort women'' is a translation of the Japanese , a euphemism ...
,
Minjung ''Minjung'' () is a Korean word that combines the two hanja characters ''min'' () and ''jung'' (). ''Min'' is from ''inmin'' (), which may be translated as "the people", and ''jung'' is from ''daejung'' (), which may be translated as "the publi ...
activists, and other marginalized groups to advocate for a reckoning with the nuances of colonial and imperial histories of Japan in Asia. Tomiyama died in August 2021, at the age of 99.


Life


Early life

Tomiyama was born in
Kobe Kobe ( ; , ), officially , is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. With a population of around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's List of Japanese cities by population, seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Port of Toky ...
,
Hyōgo Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Hyōgo Prefecture has a population of 5,469,762 () and a geographic area of . Hyōgo Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the east, Osaka Prefecture to th ...
,
Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
, in November 1921. She spent her youth in
Dairen Dalian ( ) is a major sub-provincial port city in Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, and is Liaoning's second largest city (after the provincial capital Shenyang) and the third-most populous city of Northeast China (after Shenyang ...
and
Harbin Harbin, ; zh, , s=哈尔滨, t=哈爾濱, p=Hā'ěrbīn; IPA: . is the capital of Heilongjiang, China. It is the largest city of Heilongjiang, as well as being the city with the second-largest urban area, urban population (after Shenyang, Lia ...
in
Manchukuo Manchukuo, officially known as the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of Great Manchuria thereafter, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China that existed from 1932 until its dissolution in 1945. It was ostens ...
. After graduating from the Harbin Girls' School in 1938, Tomiyama entered the Joshibi Women's School of Art and Design (now
Joshibi University of Art and Design (abbreviated "") is a private women's art school in Suginami and Sagamihara in Japan. The mission and aims of Joshibi, are developing creative minds, encouraging students to contribute to local, national and international societies, female inde ...
) in Tokyo in 1939. While at Joshibi, however, she became interested in proletarian art and ended up being expelled because of the incompatibility of her interests with the institution as the
Pacific War The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War or the Pacific Theatre, was the Theater (warfare), theatre of World War II fought between the Empire of Japan and the Allies of World War II, Allies in East Asia, East and Southeast As ...
heated up. Still, she ends up attending the Arts and Crafts Institute (Bijutsu Kōgei Gakuin) headed by critic Usaburō Toyama where she learned about
Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...
, the
Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the , was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined Decorative arts, crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., ...
, and
Surrealism Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...
under painter Ichirō Fukuzawa, among others.


1950s

By the early 1950s, Tomiyama was a single mother to two children born to different fathers during the war. To support them, she worked as a freelance illustrator and journalist, often illustrating picture books. As a journalist, she traveled throughout Japan and internationally starting in the 1950s, and during her travels she came to use her art to express the social and political problems in the areas she visited, giving a voice to marginalized groups. Her first formal artistic production after dropping out of Joshibi was inspired by the mining landscapes of the Chikuho mining region in
Kyushu is the third-largest island of Japan's Japanese archipelago, four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands (i.e. excluding Okinawa Island, Okinawa and the other Ryukyu Islands, Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Ryukyu Islands, Islands ...
where she was sent to cover the lives and labor organizing of miners in the early 1950s. Her first solo exhibition, held at Shiseido Gallery in
Ginza Ginza ( ; ) is a district of Chūō, Tokyo, Chūō, Tokyo, located south of Yaesu and Kyōbashi, Tokyo, Kyōbashi, west of Tsukiji, east of Yūrakuchō and Uchisaiwaichō, and north of Shinbashi. It is a popular upscale shopping area of Tokyo ...
in 1954, featured
oil painting Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of painting with pigments combined with a drying oil as the Binder (material), binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas, wood panel, or oil on coppe ...
s of these mining landscapes. From the mid-1950s, however, her work shifted to lithographic prints that featured
miner A miner is a person who extracts ore, coal, chalk, clay, or other minerals from the earth through mining. There are two senses in which the term is used. In its narrowest sense, a miner is someone who works at the rock face (mining), face; cutt ...
s rather than landscapes. She later returned to the topic of mines in the 1980s in a series of
lithographs Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by ...
treating the theme of Korean forced to work in hard labor conditions—mines, construction, and factories—during
WWII World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
.


1960s

During the 1960s, Tomiyama had the opportunity to travel widely outside Japan, visiting Africa, Latin America, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Over the following decades she eventually traveled through Western and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, Southeast Asia, the United States, Taiwan, and in the 1990s, to return to Chinese
Manchuria Manchuria is a historical region in northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day northeast China and parts of the modern-day Russian Far East south of the Uda (Khabarovsk Krai), Uda River and the Tukuringra-Dzhagdy Ranges. The exact ...
where she had lived until the end of her teenage years. During these early 1960s travels, however, she already began to establish a transnational network of activists involved in labor union organizing, peace advocacy, and social justice movements for herself, confirming her leftist commitments. In 1961 she followed Japanese miners who relocated to Brazil, but became curious about other walks of life in the regions, so she continued traveling throughout Latin America over the next year. During this trip she came to recognize the ongoing effects of Western colonial histories on contemporary politics and social problems. She gradually came to see how Japan's allyship with the United States replicated regional power relations during Japan's colonial era, with benefiting economically from pro-Japan US trade policies in East and Southeast Asia. This awareness led Tomiyama to leave the
Japanese Communist Party The is a communist party in Japan. Founded in 1922, it is the oldest political party in the country. It has 250,000 members as of January 2024, making it one of the largest non-governing communist parties in the world. The party is chaired ...
, which she had joined after WWII, in protest of the party's acceptance of the
Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea The Treaty on Basic Relations Between Japan and the Republic of Korea ( Japanese: ; ) was signed on June 22, 1965. It established basic diplomatic relations between Japan and South Korea. Background As Korea was not a signatory state of the T ...
(''Nikkan Kihon Jōyaku'') in 1965. In 1967, inspired by the populist aesthetics and indigenous references she saw in the works of Mexican muralist—
Diego Rivera Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957) was a Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the Mexican muralism, mural movement in Mexican art, Mexican and international art. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted mural ...
,
David Alfaro Siqueiros David Alfaro Siqueiros (born José de Jesús Alfaro Siqueiros; December 29, 1896 – January 6, 1974) was a Mexican social realist painter, best known for his large public murals using the latest in equipment, materials and technique. Along with ...
, and
José Clemente Orozco José Clemente Orozco (November 23, 1883 – September 7, 1949) was a Mexican caricaturist and painter, who specialized in political murals that established the Mexican Mural Renaissance together with murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siquei ...
—during her Latin American trip, Tomiyama set off for
Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
,
Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
,
Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...
,
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
,
Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...
, and India. Although she sought a people's art and developed an Asian-inspired artistic language distinct from the formal Japanese academic training she received in Tokyo, she found herself increasingly doubting the values of modern civilization. Returning to Japan in 1968 amidst the height of the
student protests Campus protest or student protest is a form of student activism that takes the form of protest at university campuses. Such protests encompass a wide range of activities that indicate student dissatisfaction with a given political or academi ...
, she temporarily shifted away from painting to focus on activism.


1970s

Just as Japan was taking the international spotlight through Osaka's Expo '70, Tomiyama headed off to Seoul in 1970. There she found South Korea still scarred by Korean War, and after visiting political prisoner
Suh Sung Suh Sung (; born 3 April 1945) is a Zainichi Korean academic and writer. He was previously a Professor of International Studies at Ritsumeikan University and a research advisor at the Ritsumeikan Center for Korean Studies. His specializations ...
in 1971, she was again inspired to take up black-and-white printmaking, now in service of the Korean pro-democracy movement. She began reading the poems of Kim Chi-ha, and when he and student activists from Seoul University were rounded up and sentenced to death in 1974, she produced lithographs to serve as backdrops for a Japanese television documentary on Kim's plight. When the documentary was censored, however, Tomiyama established Hidane Kōbō (Kindling Atelier) in 1976 to embark on independent production of multi-media slide works. Through these slide works, which combine images with music and poetry, she has produced works featuring Japanese translations of poems by
Kim Chi-ha Kim Jiha or Kim Chi-ha (; born Kim Yeongil (); 4 February 1941 – 8 May 2022) was a South Korean poet and playwright.LTI Korea Author Database: http://klti.or.kr/ke_04_03_011.do# Biography Kim Jiha was born Kim Yeongil () on 4 February 1941 ...
and
Chit Phumisak Chit Phumisak (also spelt Jit Poumisak; , ; 25 September 1930 – 5 May 1966) was a Thai Marxist historian, activist, author, philologist, poet, songwriter, and communist revolutionary. His most influential book was ''Chomna Sakdina Thai'', writ ...
, and collaborated with such figures as musician
Yūji Takahashi is a composer, pianist, critic, conductor, and author. Biography Yuji Takahashi studied under Roh Ogura and Minao Shibata at the Toho Gakuen School of Music. In 1960, he made his debut as a pianist by performing Bo Nilsson's ''Quantitäten''. ...
, photographer and director
Seiichi Motohashi is a Japanese photographer and movie director Director may refer to: Literature * ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine * ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker * ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty Mus ...
, and actor Soichi Itō. In May 1980 her slide show ''Prayer in Memory: Gwangju, May, 1980,'' featuring music by Takahashi, addressed the violent crackdown by dictator Chung Doo-Hwan's military on the pro-democracy Gwangju uprising and won her international recognition. In more recent years, select slide shows have become DVDs as well, Tomiyama also became involved in the
feminist movement The feminist movement, also known as the women's movement, refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for Radical politics, radical and Liberalism, liberal reforms on women's issues created by inequality between men and wom ...
in the 1970s. Inspired by the writings of
Shulamith Firestone Shulamith Bath Shmuel Ben Ari Firestone (born Feuerstein; January 7, 1945 – August 28, 2012) was a Canadian-American radical feminist writer and activist. She was a prominent figure in the early development of radical feminism and second-wave ...
, Kate Millet, and other Japanese feminists, she edited a volume of feminist essays by thirteen women writers in 1973. Also in 1973, Tomiyama joined the anti-''
kisaeng ''Kisaeng'' (), also called ''ginyeo'' (), were enslaved women from outcast or enslaved families who were trained to be courtesans, providing artistic entertainment and conversation to men of upper class. First emerging in Goryeo dynasty. were ...
'' sex tour movement, which sought to both raise awareness of and curb the growing
sex tourism Sex tourism is the practice of traveling to foreign countries, often on a different continent, with the intention of engaging in sexual activity or relationships, in exchange providing money or lifestyle support. This practice predominantly oper ...
industry that saw newly-affluent Japanese men of the post- economic-miracle 1970s going on sex tours in
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...
, the
Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...
, and
Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...
. A group of women including Tomiyama, journalist
Yayori Matsui Yayori Matsui (松井やより ''Matsui Yayori'') (April 12, 1934 – December 27, 2002) was a Japanese journalist and women's rights activist noted for her work to raise awareness of sex slaves and sex tourism in post-war Asia. In 1961 she began ...
, Akiko Yamaguchi, and others involved in the anti-''
kisaeng ''Kisaeng'' (), also called ''ginyeo'' (), were enslaved women from outcast or enslaved families who were trained to be courtesans, providing artistic entertainment and conversation to men of upper class. First emerging in Goryeo dynasty. were ...
'' sex tour movement went on to establish the Asian Women's Association (Aija no Onnatachi no kai) in 1977. Through activist actions and the journal ''Asian Women's Liberation'' (''Ajia to josei kaihō''), the AWA sought to respond "to the voices of Korean and other Asian women," and in "'learning' from them, these Japanese women activists also formed a solidarity movement dealing with such issues as human rights, labor rights, and the colonial past, all of which were pertinent to East and Southeast Asian women." Tomiyama extended these interests in
postcolonialist Postcolonialism (also post-colonial theory) is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic consequences of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and extractivism, exploitation of colonized pe ...
activism to the art world through her activities with the Japan Afro-Asian Latin American Artists' Association (JAALA). She was a founding member of the group in 1977, and served as one of the two first vice-chairmen. JAALA, which continues today, focuses on building solidarity between Japan and "the
Third World The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the Southern Cone, NATO, Western European countries and oth ...
" through artistic exchange in order destroy "the limits of the modern art," inspire a "cultural revolution," and thus "create new human ic new art based on the new sense of values." The group thus aligns with Tomiyama's concern with finding a way out of the modernist paradigm and its privileging of Western cultural values as universal while recognizing Japan's historical complicity in reinforcing modernist social, cultural, and political structures.


1980s~90s

Historian Laura Hein argues that it is Tomiyama's encounter with feminism that inspired her to incorporate experiences from her past growing up in
Dairen Dalian ( ) is a major sub-provincial port city in Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, and is Liaoning's second largest city (after the provincial capital Shenyang) and the third-most populous city of Northeast China (after Shenyang ...
and
Harbin Harbin, ; zh, , s=哈尔滨, t=哈爾濱, p=Hā'ěrbīn; IPA: . is the capital of Heilongjiang, China. It is the largest city of Heilongjiang, as well as being the city with the second-largest urban area, urban population (after Shenyang, Lia ...
into her work in the 1980s, exploring the links between personal identity, nation state, racial and gender hierarchies, and colonial power structures. This personal exploration coincided with increasing focus by the AWA on the issue of comfort women, a topic that combined Tomiyama's feminist interests with her desire to confront Japan's colonial legacies in Asia. Borrowing a term from art historian and critic Hiroki Yamamoto, cultural anthropologist Yuko Manabe describes this field of investigation as the "intersection of post-colonialism and feminism." It is in this context that Tomiyama reintroduced color into her work and began to draw more explicitly on imagery and aesthetics drawn from Asian folk religions, including motifs of the shaman, the fox, Southeast Asian and
Pacific Island The Pacific islands are a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean. They are further categorized into three major island groups: Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Depending on the context, the term ''Pacific Islands'' may refer to one of several ...
masks and puppets, dragons, and celestial symbols from the 1980s on. Tomiyama's most prominent works of the 1980s and 90s, ''A Memory of the Sea'', ''Harbin: Requiem for the Twentieth Century'', and ''The Fox Story,'' were dedicated to the victims of Japanese imperialism, in particular Koreans, including women sexually exploited by the Japanese military known as
comfort women Comfort women were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term ''comfort women'' is a translation of the Japanese , a euphemism ...
. As a result, her work has been sidelined by most art institutions in Japan and ignored by the Japanese media. In spite of these institutional challenges, however, Tomiyama found success in a fine arts context in 1995 with her traveling solo exhibition ''Silenced by History: Tomiyama Taeko, 50 Years after the War'' at the
Tama Art University or is a private Art school, art university located in Tokyo, Japan. It is known as one of the top art schools in Japan. History The forerunner of Tamabi was Tama Imperial Art School (多摩帝国美術学校, Tama Teikoku Bijutsu Gakkō) fou ...
Museum in Tokyo and Donga Gallery in Seoul and the invitation to show her work in the ''Art as Witness'' project for the first
Gwangju Biennale The Gwangju Biennale is a contemporary art biennale founded in September 1995 in Gwangju, South Jeolla province, South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half ...
. Still, the majority of her exhibitions over the last four decades of her life were held in university art galleries, municipal galleries and lobbies, and human rights organizations.


2000–2021

During the final two decades of Tomiyama's life, she continued to address Japan's complicity in a world order established by Western
colonialism Colonialism is the control of another territory, natural resources and people by a foreign group. Colonizers control the political and tribal power of the colonised territory. While frequently an Imperialism, imperialist project, colonialism c ...
and a post-WWII US-led geopolitics through projects such as ''Hiruko and the Puppeteers: A Tale of Sea Wanderers'' and ''Revelation from the Sea''. Yet in spite of her continued production during these years, much of her exhibition activity was more concerned with contextualizing her new works alongside her early work and developing a clearer view of her legacy as an artist. Her work was featured in the seminal feminist exhibition ''Japanese Women Artists in Avant-garde Movements, 1950–1975'' curated by Reiko Kokatsu for the Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Art in 2005, and a major exhibition exploring the limits of freedom of expression in East Asian democracies at the Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst in Berlin in 2015. Two major retrospectives of her work—a 2005 traveling exhibition titled ''Remembrance and Reconciliation'' shown at
Ruhr University The Ruhr University Bochum (, ) is a public research university located in the southern hills of the central Ruhr area, Bochum, Germany. It was founded in 1962 as the first new public university in Germany after World War II. Instruction began i ...
in Bochum, Philadelphia's International House, and
Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...
's Dittmar Gallery and a special exhibition curated by Kitagawa Fram as part of the 2009 Echigo-Tsumari Triennial—helped to confirm the importance of her work despite her marginalization within the institutional art world. After finding it challenging for students and other audiences to grasp the full scope of Tomiyama's work during the 2005 exhibition,
Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...
historian Laura Hein and Professor Emerita of
Kyoto Seika University is a private university in Kyoto, Iwakura, Kyoto, Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan. The school's predecessor was founded in 1968, and it was chartered as a university in 1979. The school is noted for its faculties of manga and anime, and being involved in ...
Rebecca Jennison launched a website and book in 2010 to better contextualize Tomiyama's practice. In 2018 a research team headed by
University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...
cultural anthropologist Yuko Manabe embarked on an investigation of Tomiyama's life and work, resulting in a number of new articles about her work and contributing to a retrospective of Tomiyama's work at
Yonsei University Yonsei University () is a Private university, private Christian university, Christian research university located in Seoul, South Korea. Yonsei is one of the three most prestigious universities in the country, part of a group referred to as SK ...
Museum held from March to August 2021. The exhibition was launched with a virtual symposium on her life and work co-hosted by
Yonsei University Yonsei University () is a Private university, private Christian university, Christian research university located in Seoul, South Korea. Yonsei is one of the three most prestigious universities in the country, part of a group referred to as SK ...
and
University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...
, and during the exhibition's run, in June 2021, Tomiyama was awarded South Korea's
Order of Civil Merit The Royal Order of Civil Merit (; Abbreviation, Abbr.: OMC) is a knighthood and one of the three preeminent Order of merit, orders of merit bestowed by the Kingdom of Spain, alongside the Order of Charles III (established in 1771) and the Order ...
for her contributions to the country's democratization process. Tomiyama passed away on August 18, 2021, at her home in Tokyo at the age of 99.


Select Artwork Series



Mining and Miners

Tomiyama's earliest works of the postwar period were focused on the coal and copper mines in
Hokkaido is the list of islands of Japan by area, second-largest island of Japan and comprises the largest and northernmost prefectures of Japan, prefecture, making up its own list of regions of Japan, region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō fr ...
and Kyūshu, a site of major social inequality, energy production for postwar reconstruction, and labor union organizing in the 1950s. The first series she produced in these hinterlands were mining landscapes rendered in a
cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...
style that sought to capture the beauty of discarded and devalued subjects, but in producing these
oil painting Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of painting with pigments combined with a drying oil as the Binder (material), binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas, wood panel, or oil on coppe ...
s, she confirmed her dissatisfaction with the two dominant modes of painting in early postwar Japan, namely Socialist realism and the European modernist avant garde. She then switched to the medium of lithographic prints, rendered in black and white to capture the visages of the
miner A miner is a person who extracts ore, coal, chalk, clay, or other minerals from the earth through mining. There are two senses in which the term is used. In its narrowest sense, a miner is someone who works at the rock face (mining), face; cutt ...
s she met. While the reportage-like aspect of addressing the inhabitants rather than the landscapes appealed to her, she feared her
expressionistic Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radi ...
style bore too much resemblance to that of one of her sources of inspiration,
Käthe Kollwitz Käthe Kollwitz ( born Schmidt; 8 July 186722 April 1945) was a German artist who worked with painting, printmaking (including etching, lithography and woodcuts) and sculpture. Her most famous art cycles, including ''The Weavers'' and ''The Peasa ...
. Thus she continued her search for a language distinct from European modernism that could authentically address the lives of everyday and marginalized people.


''Chained Hands in Prayer: Korea''

Tomiyama produced a series of black-and-white lithographic prints based on Kim Chi-ha's poetry in 1974 as a response to the arrest and death sentences imposed on Kim and group of pro-democracy students at Seoul University. Although produced in part for the publication ''Shin'ya: Kimu Jiha + Tomiyama Taeko shigashū'' (''Midnight: Kim Chi Ha + Tomiyama Taeko'' ''Illustrated Poetry Collection''), several works from this series were to be used as backdrops for fifteen-minute television documentary called "Kim Chi Ha: A Christian in Darkness" scheduled to precede Kim's trial in 1976. When
NHK , also known by its Romanization of Japanese, romanized initialism NHK, is a Japanese public broadcasting, public broadcaster. It is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television licence, television license fee. NHK ope ...
canceled the broadcast, however, Tomiyama and the documentary crew turned the show into a
slideshow A slide show, or slideshow, is a presentation of a series of still images ( slides) on a projection screen or electronic display device, typically in a prearranged sequence. The changes may be automatic and at regular intervals or they may be ...
called ''Chained Hands in Prayer: Korea 1974''. Featuring 140 slides of Tomiyama's lithographs alongside a musical score by musician
Yūji Takahashi is a composer, pianist, critic, conductor, and author. Biography Yuji Takahashi studied under Roh Ogura and Minao Shibata at the Toho Gakuen School of Music. In 1960, he made his debut as a pianist by performing Bo Nilsson's ''Quantitäten''. ...
, the
slideshow A slide show, or slideshow, is a presentation of a series of still images ( slides) on a projection screen or electronic display device, typically in a prearranged sequence. The changes may be automatic and at regular intervals or they may be ...
toured churches and other public venues in countries around the world including the US, Mexico, and
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...
. Art historian Hagiwara Hiroko argues that as a politically committed artist resigned to working outside of commercial galleries and other central art institutions, this slide show format became Tomiyama's signature medium, solving the problem of reaching audiences through its portable, easily reproducible format.


''Prayer in Memory ~ Gwangju, May 1980''

Tomiyama considers this primarily black-and-white (though including limited color now)
lithographic Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German ...
series crucial in her development as an artist. Tomiyama and Takahashi were inspired to produce prints and music in the immediate aftermath of the May 1980 uprising in Gwangju, initially intended to be used in a television documentary, but upon learning the broadcast was to be cancelled, they turned them into another
slideshow A slide show, or slideshow, is a presentation of a series of still images ( slides) on a projection screen or electronic display device, typically in a prearranged sequence. The changes may be automatic and at regular intervals or they may be ...
work. As with the 1977
slideshow A slide show, or slideshow, is a presentation of a series of still images ( slides) on a projection screen or electronic display device, typically in a prearranged sequence. The changes may be automatic and at regular intervals or they may be ...
, ''Prayer in Memory ~ Gwangju, May 1980'' traveled across the US, Europe, and
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...
at events hosted by
human rights group A human rights group, or human rights organization, is a non-governmental organization which advocates for human rights through identification of their violation, collecting incident data, its analysis and publication, promotion of public awareness ...
s in churches, universities, and other public gathering spaces. Her response to the
Gwangju massacre The Gwangju Democratization Movement, also known in South Korea as May 18 Democratization Movement (), was a series of student-led demonstrations that took place in Gwangju, South Korea, in May 1980, against the coup of Chun Doo-hwan. The upr ...
was one of the first to circulate internationally, thanks to her unique long-term commitment to the Korean pro-democracy movement and her privileged position working as an artist based outside of Korea.


''Coerced and Forlorn''

This series, completed in 1984, saw Tomiyama return to the theme of
miner A miner is a person who extracts ore, coal, chalk, clay, or other minerals from the earth through mining. There are two senses in which the term is used. In its narrowest sense, a miner is someone who works at the rock face (mining), face; cutt ...
s, but this time through the topic of Japan's wartime policies of
forced labor Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, or violence, including death or other forms of ...
by Korean ethnic minorities. While still produced as
lithographic Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German ...
prints, art historian Hiroko Hagiwara writes that Tomiyama "first draw and carved the images, then printed and cut them out so that she could construct collages." Rather than depicting the violence of
forced migration Forced displacement (also forced migration or forced relocation) is an involuntary or coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR defines 'forced displaceme ...
and
slave labor Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...
, Tomiyama uses bold graphic forms cut and arranged irregularly to depict the social and psychological effects of these policies, and to reflect on the complicity of Japanese civilians in this imperial history. Hagiwara argues that with this series Tomiyama's "signature theme had become imperial rule, for which she thought she bore responsibility as a Japanese person."


''Memories of the Sea''

By the mid-1980s Tomiyama had found a radically new approach to her chosen subject of the lingering legacies of Japan's colonial rule. She returned to
oil painting Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of painting with pigments combined with a drying oil as the Binder (material), binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas, wood panel, or oil on coppe ...
for the first time since the 1950s and introduced full color into these new compositions while incorporating references to Asian folk religions and tales as her new "Asian visual language." She first took up this new approach in a 1983 work that preceded this series entitled ''Those who fly in the sky''. Inspired by Lady Dai's Funerary Banner, a
Han dynasty The Han dynasty was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC9 AD, 25–220 AD) established by Liu Bang and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–206 BC ...
work discovered at the Mawangdi Tomb in the mid-1970s, the image incorporates the color palette of the ancient banner and includes a pantheon of
mythological Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...
creatures inspired by the cosmological symbols in the original banner, but with a
feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...
twist. Instead of placing the male
mythological Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...
figure of
Fu Xi Fuxi or Fu Hsi ( zh, c=伏羲) is a culture hero in Chinese mythology, credited along with his sister and wife Nüwa with creating humanity and the invention of music, hunting, fishing, domestication, and cooking, as well as the Cangjie system ...
in the heavens as the penultimate motif in the overall composition, Tomiyama's painting focuses on the earthly realm and replaces the death rituals of
Lady Dai Xin Zhui (; ; –169 or 168 BC), also known as Lady Dai or the Marquise of Dai, was a Chinese noblewoman. She was the wife of Li Cang (), the Marquis of Dai, and Chancellor of the Changsha Kingdom, during the Western Han dynasty of ancient Ch ...
with an image of a traditional standing birth, thematizing a scene of feminine strength. ''Memories of the Sea'' (1986) continued this mixture of Japanese and foreign non-Western sources, combining the macabre aesthetics of medieval Japanese
hungry ghost Hungry ghost is a term in Buddhism and Chinese traditional religion, representing beings who are driven by intense emotional needs in an animalistic way. The term zh, c= 餓鬼, p=èguǐ, l=hungry ghost is the Chinese translation of the Sansk ...
scrolls and
Kawanabe Kyōsai was a Japanese painter and caricaturist. In the words of art historian Timothy Clark, "an individualist and an independent, perhaps the last virtuoso in traditional Japanese painting". Biography Living through the Edo period to the Meiji pe ...
prints with
Mexican Day of the Dead The Day of the Dead () is a holiday traditionally celebrated on November 1 and 2, though other days, such as October 31 or November 6, may be included depending on the locality. The multi-day holiday involves family and friends gathering to pa ...
motifs from artists including
José Guadalupe Posada José Guadalupe Posada Aguilar (2 February 1852 – 20 January 1913) was a Mexican political printmaker who used relief printing to produce popular illustrations. His work has influenced numerous Latin American artists and cartoonists becaus ...
. Centering on the image of the female
shaman Shamanism is a spiritual practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into ...
as an indigenous tradition common across Central and East Asia, but one particularly poignant for Koreans seeking to heal from the death and trauma of colonial rule, the series deals with the debt the Japanese owe to the women conscripted as
comfort women Comfort women were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term ''comfort women'' is a translation of the Japanese , a euphemism ...
during the Pacific Theater of WWII. The slide show version of this series (completed in 1988) opens with the line "I am a shaman, I am a
Miko A , or shrine maiden,Groemer, 28. is a young priestess who works at a Shinto shrine. were once likely seen as Shamanism, shamans,Picken, 140. but are understood in modern Japanese culture to be an institutionalized role in daily life, trained ...
," and the series focuses on scenes that invoke shrines, graveyards, and other memorials alongside symbols of Japanese imperialism and allusions to the consumption of human female figures. Unlike earlier series, ''Memories of the Sea'' included a performance as well as the painting series and slide show, foregrounding the seemingly futile attempt to give voices to the
comfort women Comfort women were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term ''comfort women'' is a translation of the Japanese , a euphemism ...
victims whose stories were lost to the war and the seas through the figure of the shaman who bridges the worlds of the living and the dead. Completed before the death of the
Showa Emperor , posthumously honored as , was the 124th emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. He remains Japan's longest-reigning emperor as well as one of the world's longest-rei ...
and the subsequent public testimonies of
comfort women Comfort women were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term ''comfort women'' is a translation of the Japanese , a euphemism ...
from various countries, the international tours of this series helped establish a groundwork for the 1990s activism around Japanese war responsibility. Tomiyama continued this theme of women victims of
Japanese Imperialism The territorial conquests of the Empire of Japan in the Western Pacific Ocean and East Asia began in 1895 with its victory over Qing China in the First Sino-Japanese War. Subsequent victories over the Russian Empire (Russo-Japanese War) and the ...
into the early 1990s, connecting the plight of
comfort women Comfort women were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term ''comfort women'' is a translation of the Japanese , a euphemism ...
during the war to that of Korean and Southeast Asian women brought to Japan as
sex worker A sex worker is a person who provides sex work, either on a regular or occasional basis. The term is used in reference to those who work in all areas of the sex industry.Oxford English Dictionary, "sex worker" According to one view, sex work is ...
s in the decades following the 1960s
Japanese economic miracle The Japanese economic miracle () refers to a period of economic growth in the post–World War II Japan. It generally refers to the period from 1955, around which time the per capita gross national income of the country recovered to pre-war leve ...
. These themes were realized in painting series such as the
slideshow A slide show, or slideshow, is a presentation of a series of still images ( slides) on a projection screen or electronic display device, typically in a prearranged sequence. The changes may be automatic and at regular intervals or they may be ...
''Kaeranu onnatachi'' (''Women Who Do Not Return'') and the painting series ''Nihon ni ikō!'' (''Let's go to Japan!'') both of 1991.


''Harbin: Requiem for the Twentieth Century'' and ''The Fox Story''

These series, completed in the 1990s and early 2000s, introduced the figure of the fox into Tomiyama's oeuvre. Tomiyama's fox figures draw on Asian folk mythology that sees the fox as a
trickster In mythology and the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a character in a story (god, goddess, spirit, human or anthropomorphisation) who exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherw ...
, disguising itself as an innocent human only to betray those who trust it, and at the same time as a figure that most often takes the form of a woman to convincingly play the role of innocent victim. As scholar of religion Yuki Miyamoto explains, Tomiyama's fox imagery invokes
ethical Ethics is the philosophical study of moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches include normative ethics, applied e ...
questions, "not only rais ngthe question of whether women were victims of war and patriarchal society, but also the question of whether they were complicit in the structure of war." 2As Miyamoto further points out, the complexity of this figure includes its association with war through the destructive image of ''
kitsunebi Kitsunebi (狐火) is an atmospheric ghost lights, atmospheric ghost light told about in legends all across Japan outside Okinawa Prefecture.村上健司編著 『妖怪事典』 毎日新聞社、2000年、134頁。。 They are also called "hito ...
'' (foxfire), its appearance across cultural and religious boundaries (most explicitly in the figure of the
Shinto , also called Shintoism, is a religion originating in Japan. Classified as an East Asian religions, East Asian religion by Religious studies, scholars of religion, it is often regarded by its practitioners as Japan's indigenous religion and as ...
/
Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...
deity
Inari Inari may refer to: Shinto * Inari Ōkami, a Shinto spirit ** Mount Inari in Japan, site of Fushimi Inari-taisha, the main Shinto shrine to Inari ** Inari shrine, dedicated to the Shinto god Inari * Inari-zushi, a type of sushi Places * Inari, ...
in Japan), and its association with the Japanese imperial household through the enthronement ceremony for new emperors. ''Harbin: Requiem for the Twentieth Century'' (1995) was Tomiyama's response to her childhood growing up in
Manchuria Manchuria is a historical region in northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day northeast China and parts of the modern-day Russian Far East south of the Uda (Khabarovsk Krai), Uda River and the Tukuringra-Dzhagdy Ranges. The exact ...
as a settler colonist, inspired by a 1992 trip to the region and completed for the fiftieth anniversary of the end of WWII. Realized as series of forty paintings,
collage 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 ...
s, and silkscreen prints organized into eight groups, this series uses the multi-cultural history of modern as a stage through which to explore the complex power relations of the
Japanese empire The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the Japanese nation state that existed from the Meiji Restoration on January 3, 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on May 3, 1947. From 1910 to ...
's colonial margins. In one group of seven paintings depicting everyday Japanese as foxes, Tomiyama reflects on the hierarchies that allowed a female Japanese citizen such as herself to both wield colonial privilege, be viewed as second-class colonizers by the Westerner's gaze, and be victim of the patriarchal structures of Japanese imperial society. Silkscreen works in the Harbin series, such as ''Sold off to the Continent'' and ''Karayuki'' (both 1994), continue her previous theme of
comfort women Comfort women were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term ''comfort women'' is a translation of the Japanese , a euphemism ...
and
human trafficking Human trafficking is the act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring, or receiving individuals through force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of exploitation. This exploitation may include forced labor, sexual slavery, or oth ...
. A group of photocollages from the series titled ''Harbin Station: the Chronicle'' treats historical incidents such as the
Boxer Rebellion The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, was an anti-foreign, anti-imperialist, and anti-Christian uprising in North China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious F ...
and the assassination of
Itō Hirobumi Kazoku, Prince , born , was a Japanese statesman who served as the first prime minister of Japan from 1885 to 1888, and later from 1892 to 1896, in 1898, and from 1900 to 1901. He was a leading member of the ''genrō'', a group of senior state ...
by
Ahn Jung-geun An Jung-geun (; 2 September 1879 – 26 March 1910) was a Korean independence activist. He is remembered as a martyr in both South and North Korea for his 1909 assassination of the Japanese politician Itō Hirobumi, who had previously served a ...
. ''A Fox Story'' (1999) treats the theme of the Japanese colonization of
Manchuria Manchuria is a historical region in northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day northeast China and parts of the modern-day Russian Far East south of the Uda (Khabarovsk Krai), Uda River and the Tukuringra-Dzhagdy Ranges. The exact ...
in a less personal, more
folkloric Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as tales, myths, legends, proverbs, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also includes material ...
way, following ritual cycles of daily life against a wartime backdrop before connecting them to the bustle and affluence of contemporary corporate Japan. Both series combine symbols of modern imperial rule and sacrifice for the empire, such as
cherry blossom The cherry blossom, or sakura, is the flower of trees in ''Prunus'' subgenus '' Cerasus''. ''Sakura'' usually refers to flowers of ornamental cherry trees, such as cultivars of ''Prunus serrulata'', not trees grown for their fruit (although ...
s, ''
hinomaru The national flag of Japan is a rectangular white banner with a red circle at its center. The flag is officially called the but is more commonly known in Japan as the . It embodies the country's sobriquet: the Land of the Rising Sun. The ...
'' flags, and
chrysanthemum Chrysanthemums ( ), sometimes called mums or chrysanths, are flowering plants in the Asteraceae family. They are native to East Asia and northeastern Europe. Most species originate from East Asia, and the center of diversity is in China. Co ...
s with landscapes of the continental colony and tableau associated with travel and conquest: a fox family posing for a photo in front a shrine before sending a groom-soldier off to war, a procession of foxes wind through a cherry-blossom-laced landscape toting banners with wartime slogans, a faceless soldier seemingly encountering a red-light district complete with a bevy of geisha in front of a desolate sunset. This idea of travel further carries through to her treatment of many of the paintings in the Harbin series, which she mounted on inherited antique cloth replicating the conventions of East Asian hanging scrolls and handscrolls in a nod toward portability. As with Tomiyama's other major painting series, both ''Harbin: Requiem for the Twentieth Century'' and ''The Fox Story'' were turned into slideshows, using photographic details of the paintings to turn a handful of paintings each into longer narratives. When it was exhibited in a gallery space for ''Silenced by History'' in 1995, the Harbin painting series ended in a dimly lit multi-media installation featuring a gas-mask-wearing soldier and strewn broken testtubes that referenced the medical experiments conducted by the Japanese on prisoners near Harbin.


''Hiruko and the Puppeteers: A Tale of Sea Wanderers''

As implied by the title of the 2007–09 ''Hiruko and the Puppeteers: A Tale of Sea Wanderers'', this series of paintings and collages follow a troupe of
Polynesia Polynesia ( , ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of more than 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are called Polynesians. They have many things in ...
n masks, Japanese folkloric dolls, and Malaysian and Indonesian puppets on a journey to Southeast Asia from Central Asia via China and Awaji Island. While the
collage 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 ...
s set photographs of dolls and prints of deities against more abstract designs evocative of water and mud, the paintings are explicitly set under the sea in the depths of greenish waters. The narrative this series follows focuses on these masks, puppets, and dolls as signifiers of deities cast aside in the materialistic frenzy of modern culture in the twentieth century as humans turned to cinema, animations, and other technological entertainments. Yet the series is also concerned with the lingering effects of the
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
geopolitical Geopolitics () is the study of the effects of Earth's geography on politics and international relations. Geopolitics usually refers to countries and relations between them, it may also focus on two other kinds of states: ''de facto'' independen ...
order in the form of the
9/11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...
, the violent attempts of the Western powers to maintain control over oil-laced deserts, and the Japanese and
Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, people from the Korean peninsula or of Korean descent * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Korean **Korean dialects **See also: North–South differences in t ...
complicity with the military policies of the US in Asia. The series thus continues Tomiyama's "longstanding focus on transnational history, warfare, and Japan's relationship with Asia."


''Revelation from the Sea''

Initiated in the aftermath of the triple tragedies of the Tohoku Earthquake,
tsunami A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, ...
, and nuclear meltdown of 3.11, ''Revelation from the Sea'' treats the invisible threats from these events and the subsequent bungling of the Japanese corporate and government responses in four paintings and fourteen collages. With themes such as the exploded remains of Reactor No. 4,
Caesium-137 Caesium-137 (), cesium-137 (US), or radiocaesium, is a radioactive isotope of caesium that is formed as one of the more common fission products by the nuclear fission of uranium-235 and other fissionable isotopes in nuclear reactors and nucle ...
-laced
cherry blossom The cherry blossom, or sakura, is the flower of trees in ''Prunus'' subgenus '' Cerasus''. ''Sakura'' usually refers to flowers of ornamental cherry trees, such as cultivars of ''Prunus serrulata'', not trees grown for their fruit (although ...
s, a menacingly red sunset over a deceptively calm sea, dead butterflies, disassembled circuit boards, and fires within
tsunami A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, ...
-flooded urban ruins, the series reads as an apocalyptic critique of the modern hubris that is intertwined with contemporary energy networks and electronic technologies. Given this focus on death, it is not surprising that this is also the first series of Tomiyama's to prominently feature
Buddhist deities Buddhism includes a wide array of divine beings that are venerated in various ritual and popular contexts. Initially they included mainly Indian figures such as devas, asuras and yakshas, but later came to include other Asian spirits and loc ...
Fūjin or , sometimes also known as Ryobu, is the Japanese god of the wind and one of the eldest Shinto and Buddhist gods. He is portrayed as a terrifying wizardly demon, resembling a red-haired, green-skinned humanoid wearing a tiger or leopard skin ...
,
Raijin , also known as , , , , and Kamowakeikazuchi-no-kami is a god of lightning, thunder, and Storm, storms in Japanese mythology and the Shinto and Buddhism, Buddhist religion. He is typically depicted with fierce and aggressive facial expressions ...
, and the Shitennō—although following her earlier strategies of featuring cross-cultural figures, these deities have their roots in
Hindu Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...
iconography. She collaborated again with
Yūji Takahashi is a composer, pianist, critic, conductor, and author. Biography Yuji Takahashi studied under Roh Ogura and Minao Shibata at the Toho Gakuen School of Music. In 1960, he made his debut as a pianist by performing Bo Nilsson's ''Quantitäten''. ...
to turn this series into a multimedia show, but this time in the form of a DVD rather than a
slideshow A slide show, or slideshow, is a presentation of a series of still images ( slides) on a projection screen or electronic display device, typically in a prearranged sequence. The changes may be automatic and at regular intervals or they may be ...
.


Select exhibitions

* Solo exhibition, Shiseido Gallery, Ginza, Tokyo, 1954 * Exhibitions of lithographs from the ''On the Poems of Kim Ji-ha and Pablo Neruda'' series, New York, Chicago, and Berkeley, 1975 * Exhibitions of ''Kwangju, May 1980: A Prayer in Memory'', Kansai and Sapporo, Japan, 1980 * Exhibitions held in Paris, Berlin, Heidelberg and Munich, 1982–83 * Exhibition of oil paintings, prints, movie, and slide show, Gallery of the University of London, UK, 1988 * ''War as Seen through Women's Eyes'', Galerie NIL, West Berlin, West Germany, 1988 * ''Tomiyama Taeko hanga-ten: waga Chikuhō, waga Chōsen'', Liberty Osaka (Osaka Human Rights Museum), 1989 * Two-person exhibition with Jaratsuri Roopkumdee, Bangkok, Thailand, 1991 * ''Erōsu, waga itami: Tomiyama Taeko-ten'', Parthenon Tama Municipal Gallery, Tama City, Tokyo, Japan in conjunction with the Tama Feminist Festival, 1992 * ''Ajia e no shiza: kaeranu shojo genga-ten'', the Japan Foundation ASEAN Cultural Center Gallery, Tokyo, 1993 * Special Guest Exhibition, First Gwangju Biennal Art Festival, Gwangju, Korea, 1995 * ''Silenced by History: Tomiyama Taeko, 50 Years after the War,'' Tama Art University Museum, Tokyo and Donga Gallery, Seoul, 1995 * ''Ianfu e no rekuiemu: Tomiyama Taeko sakuhin-ten'', Liberty Osaka (Osaka Human Rights Museum), 1997 * ''From the Asians: Tomiyama Taeko & Hong Sung-dam'', Mangwol-dong Gallery, Gwangju; Bucheon City Hall Lobby, Korea; and Kawasaki City Education and Culture Center, Japan, 1998 * 3rd Gwangju Biennale, Korea, 2000 * ''Kitsune to tankō-ten'', Acros Fukuoka, Kyushu, Japan, 2001 * ''Miko to Kitsune: Tomiyama Taeko'', Gallery Fleur, Kyoto Seika University, 2002 * ''Japanese Women Artists in Avant-garde Movements, 1950–1975'', curated by Kokatsu Reiko, Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Utsunomiya, Japan, 2005 * ''Remembrance and Reconciliation'', Ruhr University, Bochum, Germany; International House, Philadelphia; Dittmar Gallery, Northwestern University, Chicago, USA, 2005–06 * ''Embracing Asia: The Complete Works of Tomiyama Taeko 1950–2009'', Echigo-Tsumari Triennial, Nakasato, 2009 * ''Tomiyama Taeko sakuhin-ten: kioku no ito wo tumugu—shinsai, sensō, onna'', Riaosha Gallery, Keio University, 2012 * ''Banned Images: Control and Censorship in East Asian Democracies'', Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, 2015 * ''Tomiyama Taeko: Owari no hajimari, hajimari no owari'', Maruki Gallery for the Hiroshima Panels, Saitama, Japan, 2016–17 (special exhibition) * ''Truth: Promise for Peace'', National Women's History Exhibition Hall, Seoul, 2017 * ''74th Annual Japan Independent Exhibition and Women Artists'', Japan Art Association, National Art Center, Tokyo, 2021 * ''To Turbulent Seas of Memory: The World of Tomiyama Taeko'', Yonsei University Museum, 2021 (included a symposium co-hosted by the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo)


Publications

* ''Tankōfu to watakushi'', Mainichi Shinbunsha, 1960 * ''Chūnanbei hitori tabi'', Asahi Shinbunsha, 1964 * ''Hankenryoku no shōgen: shimin ga tsuikyū suru'', Gōdō Shuppan, 1971 * ''Watashi no kaihō: henkyō to teihen no tabi'', Chikuma Shobō, Ltd., 1972 * ''Onna e no sanka: warera no kaihō'', Sanseidō Co., Ltd., 1973
''Koe yo kesareta koe yo Chiri ni'' [''Silenced Voices: Chile''
/nowiki>">'Silenced Voices: Chile''">''Koe yo kesareta koe yo Chiri ni'' [''Silenced Voices: Chile''
/nowiki> Rironsha Co., Ltd., 1974 (poetry by Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral, lithographs by Tomiyama Takeo) * ''Watashi no girishia shinwa: erōsu e no kaiki'', Doshinsha Publishing, 1975 * ''Shin'ya: Kimu Jiha + Tomiyama Taeko shigashū'', Doyō Bijutsusha, 1976 (poetry by Kim Chi-ha, prints by Tomiyama Taeko)
''Kaihō no bigaku: 20-seiki no gaka wa nani o mezashita ka''
Miraisha, 1979 * ''Hajike hōsenka: bi to sei e no toi'', Chikuma Shobō, Ltd., 1983 * ''Souru—Pari—Tōkyō: e to minzoku wo meguru taidan'', Kirokusha, 1985 (co-authors Lee Ungno, Park In-kyung, and Tomiyama Taeko) * ''Sensō sekinin o uttaeru hitori tabi: Rondon, Berurin, Nyūyōku,'' Iwanami Shoten, 1989
''Minshū ga jidai o hiraku: minshū shingaku o meguru Nikkan no taiwa''
Shinkyō Shuppansha, 1990 * ''Jidai o tsugeta onnatachi: nijisseiki feminizumu e no michi'', Tsuge Shobō, 1990 * ''Kaeranu onnatachi: jūgun ianfu to Nihon bunka'', Iwanami Shoten, 1992 * ''Bijutsushi o toki hanatsu'', Jiji Tsūshinsha, 1994 (co-authors Tomiyama Taeko, Hamada Kazuko, and Hagiwara Hiroko) * ''Silenced by History: Tomiyama Taeko's Work'', Gendai Kikakushitsu, 1995
''Hiruko to kugutsushi: tabigeinin no monogatari'' [''Hiruko and the puppeteers: A tale of sea wanderers''
/nowiki>], Gendai Kikakushitsu, 2009 (paintings by Tomiyama Taeko, music by Takahashi Yūji) * ''Ajia o idaku: gaka jinsei kioku to yume'', Iwanami Shoten, 2009 * ''Imagination without Borders: Feminist Artist Tomiyama Taeko and Social Responsibility'', by Laura Hein and Rebecca Jemison, University of Michigan Press, 2010 * ''"Otokobunka" yo, saraba: shokuminchi, sensō, genpatsu o kataru'', Iwanami Shoten, 2013 (Sug-ok Shin interviewer, Tomiyama Taeko interviewee) * ''Banned Images: Control and Censorship in East Asian Democracies'', Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, 2015 (exhibition catalogue)


Public collections

The British Museum, LondonAsian Art Museum, San FranciscoHa Jung-woong Collection, Gwangju Museum of Art


References


External links


Tomiyama Taeko's Official website

Imagination Without Borders
website compiled by Laura Hein and Rebecca Jennison to accompany the 2010 publication, updated in 2020 and hosted by Northwestern University's Libraries
"Ekkyō suru gakka: Tomiyama Taeko no sei to geijutsu"
symposium recording, hosted by University of Tokyo and Yonsei University (in Japanese and Korean)
Tomiyama Taeko profile page
from the 2015 exhibition ''Banned Images'' at Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst Berlin {{DEFAULTSORT:Taeko, Tomiyama 1921 births 2021 deaths 20th-century Japanese women artists 21st-century Japanese women artists Artists from Tokyo Japanese painters Artists from Kobe Recipients of the Order of Civil Merit (Korea)