The time seems to be ripe to bring Japanese women artists out of the shadow of famous fathers. The first was Katsushika Hokusai's daughter Oi, whose life in the 19th century has been dramatized in novels, manga and even a new television series. Now, through an exhibition devoted to another parent-child pair in Japanese art, we meet Kyosui (1868-1935), the daughter of genius painter Kawanabe Kyosai (1831-1889).
The two don't share equal billing and papa clearly steals this show. Nevertheless, "Kyosai and Kyosui: The Soul of the Artist as Pioneered by Father and Daughter," at the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum is a welcome opportunity to learn about another Japanese female artist from an earlier time.
Kawanabe Kyosai needs little introduction. Even during his lifetime, he had a following in the West, thanks to contact with foreign visitors to Japan, including British architect Josiah Conder and the French industrialist Emile Etienne Guimet, founder of the Guimet Museum in Paris. There have been three major retrospectives of his work in the last two decades, including most recently in 2015 at the Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum in Tokyo.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.