After studying Western painting at the Tokyo Fine Arts School, Okada Kenzo continued his studies in Paris. Back in Japan, he achieved a degree of acclaim for his urbane and romantic style. This work is based on his experiences in Manchuria, where he traveled from 1941 to 1942. After the Japanese annexation of Korea in 1910 and the founding of Manchukuo in 1932, waves of Japanese began moving to the Korean Peninsula and mainland China in unprecedented numbers. Artists were no exception, and from around the 1930s, works dealing with Korea, Taiwan, and China proliferated rapidly within the Japanese art world. Okada’s depictions of Manchurian people stand out for their sophistication, with their elegant human forms, poses, compositions, and use of color.
(HIBINO Miyon)
After studying Western painting at the Tokyo Fine Arts School, Okada Kenzo continued his studies in Paris. Back in Japan, he achieved a degree of acclaim for his urbane and romantic style. This work is based on his experiences in Manchuria, where he traveled from 1941 to 1942. After the Japanese annexation of Korea in 1910 and the founding of Manchukuo in 1932, waves of Japanese began moving to the Korean Peninsula and mainland China in unprecedented numbers. Artists were no exception, and from around the 1930s, works dealing with Korea, Taiwan, and China proliferated rapidly within the Japanese art world. Okada’s depictions of Manchurian people stand out for their sophistication, with their elegant human forms, poses, compositions, and use of color.
(HIBINO Miyon)