Noguchi Shohin

Noguchi Shohin (野口 小蘋) (25 February 1847 – 17 February 1917) was a Japanese painter.

Noguchi Shohin
野口 小蘋
Born	Matsumura Chikako (松邨 親子) (1847-02-25)February 25, 1847 Namba, Osaka
Died	February 17, 1917(1917-02-17) (aged 69)
Nationality	Japanese
Known for	Bunjin painting
Spouse	Noguchi Masaaki (野口 正章)
Children	Iku (郁子) (daughter) (Noguchi Shokei (野口 小蕙)) (daughter)

Biography

Shohin was born in Ōsaka Prefecture in 1847.

Shohin was appointed an Imperial household artist — an honour for the most distinguished artists — in 1904 and her pictures were bought by the Japanese Imperial family.^[1] She was a friend of the statesman Kido Takayoshi and she and Okuhara Seiko enjoyed his patronage. Kido and the two of them would create gassaku which are collaborative paintings that include both pictures and text.^[2]

Her daughters Iku and Shokei also became artists.^[1]

In 1982 Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Art had an exhibition of her art.^[3]

Style

Her surviving paintings seem to show a woman who felt equal to men in her culture. She illustrates women who appear as literati painting, playing music and doing calligraphy. Her paintings show some independence as women's paintings of her time usually followed tradition or the subjects laid down by the artist's schools.^[3]

References

1. Kirstin Olsen (1994). Chronology of Women's History. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 202–. ISBN 978-0-313-28803-6.
2. Ellen P. Conant (2006). Challenging Past And Present: The Metamorphosis of Nineteenth-Century Japanese Art. University of Hawaii Press. pp. 178–180. ISBN 978-0-8248-2937-7.
3. Marsha Smith Weidner (January 1990). Flowering in the Shadows: Women in the History of Chinese and Japanese Painting. University of Hawaii Press. pp. 233–. ISBN 978-0-8248-1149-5.