50 Prints & Paintings, Toko Shinoda at 100

February 15-March 17, 2013
Garden hours
Included with Garden admission

The Portland Japanese Garden will present  50 Prints and Paintings, Toko Shinoda at 100 February 15-March 17, 2013. Japanese artist Toko Shinoda, who celebrated her 99th birthday in 2012, is renowned as one of Japan’s foremost modern practitioners of the ancient art of calligraphy. The exhibition will feature 50 works–including calligraphy, lithographs and paintings–from the Tolman Collection in Tokyo. To commemorate the Portland Japanese Garden’s 50th anniversary in 2013, the exhibition comprises one work of art from each year in the Garden’s history, from 1963 to the present. All works will be available for purchase.

Working in a medium that traces its roots back 3,000 years to ancient China, Shinoda was influenced by the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1950s and today her works combine a refined minimalism with a dynamic abstract energy. Her masterful brushstrokes are often complemented with a subtle touch of color and convey a Zen-like sense of tranquility. Interviewed by The Japan Times on the occasion of her 90th birthday, Shinoda described her work as “a balance between dynamism and traditional elegance.”

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Toko Shinoda was born in 1913 to Japanese parents in Manchuria. Her family moved back to Japan when she was two years old, and there she trained in the art of calligraphy starting at age 6. As a young woman, she began to teach calligraphy and held her first solo exhibition in Tokyo in 1940. In the 1950s, Shinoda lived and traveled for two years in the United States, where she became associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement. Her work was included in a group exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1954. In the 1960s, Shinoda began working in the medium of lithography, for which she is widely known today. She has created many murals, the largest of which is 90-feet long, installed at Zojoji, a revered 600-year-old temple in Tokyo. Her work can be found in museum collections throughout the world, including Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art; the Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the Art Institute of Chicago.

This is the first of three Art in the Garden exhibitions honoring the Portland Japanese Garden’s 50th anniversary in 2013 and is presented by the Frederick D. and Gail Y. Jubitz Foundation.