Solitude in the City SELECTED WORKS ON PAPER FROM THE TCU PERMANENT COLLECTION Curated by Emily Dorward Jennifer Earthman Elizabeth Theban Jennifer Yuhas In conjunction with the exhibition Solitude in the City, On show at Texas Christian University’s Moudy Gallery January 17, 2019 through February 7, 2019 Created as a part of the Art Museum Seminar Taught by Professor Babette Bohn Art History Masters Program Texas Christian University Fall 2018 With special thanks to: Sara-Jayne Parsons Lynné Bowman Cravens Stefanie Ball Rachel Livedalen Ashley Stecenko Chris Wickers Zeke Williams Cover illustration, center image: Noel Mahaffey (American, b. 1944) Night Times Square, 1981 (cat. No. 12) Background image: Ching-Jang Yao (Taiwanese, 1941-2001), Building Reflection, 1981 (detail, cat. No. 13) Cover Design: Jennifer Yuhas Formatting: Emily Dorward 1 The prints in this exhibition represent solitude in the modern city. Compositional conventions like the shadowed arch and doorway, the crowds across the street unaware of our gaze, and views from outside and above the city recur across styles and cultures. While varying in size and technique, the works in the show are all prints from the last century, representing the nature of urban life through a range of perspectives. Colorful, large-scale silkscreen prints by some of the biggest names in Photorealism, intimate WWII-era etchings of Europe’s architectural magnificence, and crisp Japanese woodblock prints from an ancient culture finding its way into modernity are all part of the exhibition. These prints span eras and cultures, techniques, color, and scale, but all deal with the common solitude of the human condition. Solitude in the City is our own version of modern-day cosmopolitan liminality, where we hope solitary contemplation will broaden cultural perspectives while enhancing self-knowledge. A renaissance of Japanese prints occurred in the twentieth century, in which printmakers were inspired by the ukiyo-e prints of Japan’s past. Ukiyo-e prints had defined printmaking during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and are characterized by flatness, bright colors, and images of courtesans, actors, and other elements of Japanese life in the pleasure quarters.1 Twentieth- century Japanese printmakers modernized and deviated from traditional ukiyo-e as a result of the cross-cultural exchange between East and West.2 Reacting to European fascination with ukiyo-e prints alongside an interest in the perspective and sophistication of Western art and technique, two groups of prints emerged, both represented in this exhibition. Shin-hanga are prints created with the purposeful intention of maintaining Japanese tradition, while sosaku-hanga print artists embraced Western art and sought creative personal expression through varying techniques and subject matter.3 The two movements existed in opposition to one another in the twentieth century, but because they occurred simultaneously and were shaped by the same aesthetic, cultural, and market trends, many artists, including Tokuriki Tomikichiro, represented in this exhibition, produced both types.4 These new prints are as important in Japanese life today as the ukiyo-e were in Japan’s past but their difference arises from their cultural context: during the heyday of ukiyo-e, Japan was agricultural, feudal, and sealed from the outside world, while the Japan of today is industrialized, centralized, urbanized, and caught up in internationalism.5 These modern prints are thus a result of Eastern-Western dynamics.6 The elimination of figures in the modern prints are a significant departure from traditional ukiyo-e prints, as they primarily featured figurative subject matter. Shin-hanga and sosaku-hanga artists also began to feature abstraction as well as the new urban landscape, either with schematized suggestions of human life or no figures at all, in reaction to the modern condition. Nishiki-e, the technique used in the prints included in the exhibition, was the final stage of development for woodblock prints and used multiple colors for different blocks.7 2 Like the Japanese artists who harkened back to tradition to develop sosaku-hanga and shin- hanga, artists in the coastal United States developed a new distinctly urban style in the mid- twentieth century. The early photorealists used traditional modes of painting to create something new and altogether radical in the 1960s.8 They took the precision and realism to an illusionistic level and combined it with a photograph-based process to create Photorealism. 9 Although there was a split between east and west coast artists in subject matter, the focus remained on examining the common culture.10 They pushed boundaries regarding the nature of art and the intense nature of their illusionistic realism called into question the idea of originality and the original.11 The direct adaptation of photographs into painting and prints challenged the way the world is seen and consumed on a daily basis.12 Looking to the works featured in this exhibition, artists represent both coasts through their depictions of urban landscapes. Hilo Chen’s Rooftop Sunbather (1981) stands apart in its direct figuration and focus on an individual within the city scene. The voyeuristic nature of both the viewer and the figure brings to mind the perpetual state of being on display in a crowd while also being unseen as an individual, creating a sense of solitude in the sea of people. Solitude can be isolating or transforming to those who experience it; it is often associated with the former rather than the latter. For some, loneliness can signify a lack of connection to the people around them, especially in the city, where interconnectedness is a function of the environment. For others, separating themselves can present an opportunity for revitalization from the unavoidable hustle and bustle of the urban landscape. In Solitude in the City, one finds evidence of this contrast through the meaning of solitude in the urban scenes presented. Across cultures, time periods, and styles, solitude is a theme common to all humanity. In these prints, solitude can be situated within the settings of crowded or empty urban spaces as depicted by the Photorealists, where isolation can be experienced by individuals who remain at the margins of the masses that dominate city life. Japanese prints by Okiie Hashimoto and Tokuriki Tomikichiro demonstrate the connection with nature attainable even within the sphere of urbanity, with depictions of sand gardens and lonely bridges that connect the city with the natural world and provide a space for quiet contemplation. In addition to these examples, the prints present a variety of perspectives on city life at different hours of the day, place, and time, which prompts the viewer to consider what solitude means within those instances. Solitude in the City explores what it means to be alone in a space of habitual community and connectedness where one might yearn for companionship or reflection. 3 1. Tokuriki Tomikichiro (Japanese, 1922–1999) Nishiki Ohi Bridge c.1950 nishiki-e woodcut 15 x 10 inches Tokuriki Tomikichiro was born in 1902 in Kyoto to a line of artists dating back to the Keicho era (1596-1615).13 Before studying printmaking, he studied nihonga, a traditional Japanese style of painting, and graduated from both the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts and the Kyoto Technical School of Painting.14 While at the Municipal School of Arts and Crafts he became interested in sosaku-hanga, translating to “creative prints,” which featured Western influences. He also took a course taught by Hiratsuka, an influential printmaker at the time, who contributed to Tokuriki’s interest in shin-hanga prints,15 which were modernized prints inspired by ukiyo-e from the Edo period; ukiyo-e were part of popular culture, were mass- produced, and tended to focus on aspects of city life.16 The demarcation between sosaku-hanga and shin-hanga is not always clear, and many artists, including Tokuriki worked in both, further blurring distinctions.17 Hiratsuka encouraged self-carving and self-printing,18 an aspect of sosaku-hanga that made a great impression on Tokuriki.19 Well-known for his popular landscape prints, Tokuriki also made prints that focused on different subject matter for his own pleasure.20 While he still sold the latter, they were not as profitable as the landscapes. Nihishi Oki Bridge is an example of one of Tokuriki’s creative prints. Here, he depicts the urban landscape. The bridge functions as the centerpiece and immediately draws the eye with its rhythmic composition. Oddly, the bridge is almost empty despite the urban setting, which is perhaps a reflection of Tokuriki’s tendency to minimize and schematize figures in prints depicting the city. His depiction of a few solitary figures allows the viewer to imagine himself enjoying a quiet moment on the bridge after a hectic day, viewing the distant city from afar. JE 4 2. Tokuriki Tomikichiro (Japanese, 1922–1999) Geisha Ba, c.1950 nishiki-e woodcut 9.25 x 14 inches This print likely comes from one of Tokuriki’s series featuring Kyoto. One can imagine viewing this scene from Nihishi Oki Bridge, also included in this exhibition. The subject matter of this print is a house of geisha, courtesans schooled in traditional Japanese arts including music, dancing, conversation, and tea ceremony. This narrative directly references ukiyo-e prints as they often featured courtesans and actors from the pleasure quarters of Edo. As in his other included prints, Tokuriki again eliminates all figures, only suggesting human life through the brightly lit windows. The flatness is also reminiscent of ukiyo-e; depth is only hinted at through the presence of the river against the tree and building. Tokuriki emphasizes the juxtaposition of these natural elements versus man-made ones, perhaps in order to suggest the importance of nature in city spaces in light of the hectic pace of urbanization.