LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA.- On December 5th the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) opens the first comprehensive retrospective of art by Munakata Shiko, long considered one of Japan’s greatest 20th-century artists and recipient of the prestigious Imperial Order of Culture from the Japanese government. Organized by LACMA, Munakata Shiko: Japanese Munakata Shiko was born in 1903, the sixth child of a poor blacksmith in Aomori, the northernmost prefecture of Honshu. Although extremely nearsighted, Munakata grew up with vivid memories of the intense colors of local festival kites and parade floats, and the vibrant lantern paintings in local shrines. At the age of 17, he decided to become an artist. A year later, he saw a reproduction of Vincent van Gogh’s Still Life: Vase with Five Sunflowers, which shook the artist’s heart and had a profound effect on his life and career. With the conviction that he was going to “become Van Gogh,” Munakata left Aomori for Tokyo in September 1924. Munakata became a woodblock printmaker for two reasons: his nearsightedness, and his belief that the Japanese woodblock print was equal to Western painting. Munakata distanced himself from modern Western art by asserting that the woodblock print was a distinctive Japanese art form capable of rivaling anything being created in the West. He rejected returning to Japanese artistic styles of the past, such as ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world); instead he decided to create his own unique form of hanga (woodblock prints). Because of his limited eyesight, Munakata would carve a block with his face almost touching the board. Although he often prepared preliminary sketches, they were merely guides; once his hand, gripping the carving knife, began to move, it would not stop. From right to left, with fierce speed, he would carve freely and spontaneously, and images would begin to appear as if already concealed in the wood. Within Munakata Shiko: Japanese Master of the Modern Print is a video presentation that shows the artist at work in this wildly instinctive manner. The exhibition begins with works from the artist’s early years, 1924–1944, considered his ‘black and white’ period. During this time, Munakata created prints such as The Pantheon of the Gandavyuha-sutra (1936), in which black line is imbued with a vital force, and In Praise of the Four Cardinal Points (1941), where the composition occupies the entire white surface, with bold figures outlined sharply in black. By the mid-1930s to the 1940s, Munakata had revolutionized the concept of scale in the Japanese woodblock print, liberating it from the small-scale traditional ukiyo-e format of the Edo period (1615–1868) and creating enormous pieces for screen and wall murals. The exhibition next presents masterpieces from the years 1945 and 1959 when Munakata produced many major works, each embodying his continuous experimentation with radically new techniques that he absorbed from Western artists including the German Expressionists. One of the notable innovations the artist employed is the use of white lines on black ground, evidenced in In Praise of Great Joy: On Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (1952), in which he brought to life the black-painted surface of the board. Another technique he mastered and that was instrumental in his worldwide recognition was the use of pigments applied to the back of the print, allowing the intense color to saturate through to the front of the surface without overpowering the vivid black lines, the subtle expression of the black surfaces, or the beauty of the print. Works such as A Self-Portrait with Joy (1963), created when the artist was sixty, radiates warmth with its brilliant reds, yellows, and violets. This work also demonstrates the international language imbedded in Munakata’s art, with its references to Beethoven and Van Gogh, as well as depictions of tea bowls and other traditional Japanese objects. As Munakata Shiko wrestled to create strong, compassionate, and propitiatory figures for his woodblocks, his imagery was deeply inspired by poetry, literary prose, and Buddhist texts. His images featured poems or prose, to the extent that in some prints the text itself was the visual motif that anchored the pictorial arrangement, occasionally overriding attendant images. In his later years, Munakata produced a diverse range of works based on distinctly Japanese tales, poetry, images of women, flowers and birds, and landscapes and scenes of nature, as well as subjects related to Buddhism and indigenous deities. He created hanga that expressed his nostalgia for Aomori, and much of his subject matter came from his hometown, such as the Kite Designs for the Aomori Festival (1971).Although Munakata is the best-known Japanese printmaker of the 20th century, he is also regarded as one of the finest calligraphers of his time. It is impossible to overstate the centrality of calligraphy in the visual arts of China and Japan; indeed, the art of painting, while employing similar brushes, is ranked below calligraphy in the aesthetic hierarchy of East Asian art. Because the precise stroke order and overall form cannot be violated if the calligraphy is to be readable, it is much more difficult for a calligrapher to break new ground or to produce an easily identifiable style. The first impression one receives on viewing a calligraphy by Munakata is its nearly overwhelming power and vitality. It fills the picture plane almost to bursting, as if barely contained by its frame. A Munakata calligraphy is executed with great speed: ink dots, drips, and splashes are evidence of the intense and fevered manner of creation. This is expressionist calligraphy at its best, and the two works presented from LACMA’s collection are some of his most dramatic achievements.Born in 1903, Munakata Shiko moved to Tokyo in 1924 to pursue a career as an artist. He exhibited his works for the first time in 1928 at the eighth Japanese Creative Print Association and later that same year, his oil paintings were selected for the ninth Teiten exhibition. From that time, Munakata exhibited at museums, galleries, and festivals throughout the world including the Tokyo Prefectural Museum; Japan Folk Crafts Museum; International Art Exhibition of Japan, Japan Art Academy; National Museum of Modern Art, Japan; Sao Paulo Biennale in Brazil; Salon de Mai, Paris; Cleveland Museum of Art; Smithsonian Institution; Brooklyn Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others. His work is in the collections of LACMA, The Luxembourge Museum, Paris; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Munakata authored several books on his art and lectured extensively throughout the world. In addition, he received numerous honors, including the Bunkasho, the Hakujitsu Award, Yamada Promotional Award, Saburi Award, Okada Prize, and the prestigious Medal Luzica Matarazzo.Master of the Modern Print showcases 378 woodblock prints, paintings, calligraphies, and ceramics that cover the artist’s entire career and demonstrate how Munakata successfully merged ancient with modern and Japanese with Western styles. The works will remain on view in LACMA’s architecturally unique Pavilion for Japanese Art, through March 2, 2003. Munakata Shiko: Japanese Master of the Modern Print presents major works from the collection of the Munakata Museum in Kamakura, including Two Bodhisattva and Ten Great Disciples of Sakyamuni and Nature through the Twelve Months, which received international acclaim, winning the Medal Luzica Matarazzo, the top prize in the print category at the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1955, and the grand prize in the print division in the Venice Biennale in 1956. The exhibition also showcases fine examples of Munakata’s calligraphies from LACMA’s permanent collection. The works in the exhibition are mounted on the original screens and scrolls designed by the artist, many with unconventional vibrant colors that enhance the art.