<b>BLESSING C</b> / Toko Shinoda20th Century$3,500</em>

Details

Born in Manchuria (occupied China), Toko Shinoda returned to the homeland with her fellow native Japanese after the war. Shinoda recounted how she never felt welcomed or at home in Japan.

This alienation afforded her freedom from the strict Japanese social structure and allowed her to pursue a career in the visual arts, an unconventional vocation for a woman of her generation. Shinoda's early influence was calligraphy expressed as sumi work on paper. However, internationally-minded artistic movements, such as abstract expressionism, inspired Shinoda to move beyond the calligraphic idiom and fully engage with abstraction. In this new format, Shinoda found early success with a 1953 exhibition of her work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. She subsequently moved to New York three years later, residing there until 1958.

During her stay, she came into contact with the work of Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, and other key figures of the abstract expressionist movement. This left a deep impression on her – she later praised these artists as "very generous people" with whom she "would share ideas and opinions on our work." During this time, her work was represented by Betty Parsons Gallery and placed in a number of high-profile collectors. Upon her return to Japan, Shinoda honed her work beyond traditional calligraphy towards an expressive, abstract style. By the 1960s, she began working in lithography with hand-applied embellishments. It was her printed work that became a force in the field and finally provided traction for her acceptance in Japanese artistic circles.

Blessing C is a quintessential and iconic work that demonstrates Shinoda's unique synthesis of calligraphy with abstract expressionism. Each element within this composition emanates from the spirit of the calligraphic brush, but the design’s expressive interaction owes much to the power of the various modes of abstraction from the late 1950s.

In this design, Shinoda places a series of large rectangles—black, gray, and a translucent gray/white—at left that move toward the center of the composition. All the while, a series of confident strokes of black, gray, and red, slash across the composition. All the elements in this work appear vibrant, possessing the animated quality of a master’s hand.

Connoisseur's Note

Though printed via stone lithography, there is a substantial number of hand-applied embellishments by the artist herself. All the thin gestural black and light gray strokes are hand executed as well as the striking cinnabar red slash. Interestingly enough, Shinoda used a Ming dynasty inkstone for her trademark cinnabar red pigment. This work is a prime example of why her lithography is so sought-after in the worldwide marketplace.

This impression is in a fine state of preservation with exceedingly sharp and vivid colors and in overall excellent condition.