Happy Birthday, Yasuo Kuniyoshi!

Yasuo Kuniyoshi

(born September 1, 1893 - died May 14, 1953)

Japanese-American painter, born at Okayama. He emigrated to the USA in 1906 and studied first in Los Angeles and then, after moving to New York in 1910, at several art schools, notably the Art Students League, 1916–20. His work shows evidence of his Oriental origins only in a very vague way. In the 1920s and early 1930s he painted in a slightly whimsical manner, often with pastoral imagery, but in the 1930s (at which time he began to achieve serious recognition) his style became more sensuous; his pictures of moody women are indebted to those of his friend Pascin. His later work showed a deepening social and political conscience, expressed in harsher colouring and sometimes disquieting imagery. During the Second World War he designed posters against Japan, but since the 1960s there has been a growing interest in his work there. From 1933 until his death Kuniyoshi taught at the Art Students League.

CHILD, 1923

Strong Woman and Child, 1925