Jazz

Chizuko Yoshida

A color woodcut from Chizuko Inoue Yoshida's early exploration of Abstract woodcuts, Chizuko Yoshida’s “Jazz” exhibits a boldness that embodied her early career, following her return to the technique that she had begun to explore in the pre-war workshop of Kitaoka Fumio in 1941. The influence of music, Western modernism, and her interest in geometric compositions inform this energetic, bright composition, peppered with kinetic shapes that seem to dance off of the sheet.

With the onset of World War and its ensuing upheaval, Yoshida set aside art entirely, focusing on violin and music theory studies until she was able to engage in art courses again in the late 1940s. By now the Abstract Expressionist movement had made its way into the Japanese art world with broader acceptance. Yoshida soon became instrumental in helping to establish coalitions for Japanese women artists, particularly the Vermilion Leaf Society.

Chizuko Inoue became part of the legendary Japanese printmaking Yoshida family with her marriage to her colleague Hodaka Yoshida, the son of Hiroshi and Fujio Yoshida and younger brother of Toshi Yoshida. Their daughter, Ayomi Yoshida is also a noted sosaku hanga printmaker.