was a Japanese painter, printmaker and art educator.
Kitagawa's work, ranging in media from oil and tempera paintings to woodcuts and copperplate prints, to mosaic and ceramic murals, depict not only everyday-life scenes of urban and rural working people, but also political events. He synthesized traditions of postimpressionist, expressionist, Cubist and Surrealist painting with Mexican modernist painting, particularly Mexican muralism, and such Japanese artistic traditions as Nihonga, ink wash painting, and ceramics.
Having encountered such socially aware artists as the US-American realist painter John Sloan and the Mexican modernist painter Alfredo Ramos Martínez during his years in the United States and Mexico from 1914 to 1936, Kitagawa became involved in Ramos Martínez’ Open Air Art Schools of Painting, which, as part of the Mexican postrevolutionary social reforms, provided children and adolescents in rural areas with access to art to foster their emancipation.
After returning to Japan in 1936, Kitagawa was accepted by the Japanese art world for his unique painting style inspired by Mexican muralism. He became a member of the Nika Art Association and began engaging in art education as a jury member of children's art exhibitions and as a publisher of children's books in collaboration with art critic Sadajirō Kubo. Kitagawa became a seminal figure for the progressive art education movement in Japan in the postwar years. Inspired by the Mexican Open Air Art Schools, he organized an open-air summer art school for children and adolescents at the Higashiyama Zoo in Nagoya, founded his own art school, and was involved in the Sōzō Biiku Kyōkai (Society for Creative Art Education), a network of artists, teachers, and parents advocating for a child- and life-centered approach in art education.
With his cross-cultural experiences and knowledge of social, racial and cultural representations of painting,Winther-Tamaki, Bert, “Kitagawa Tamiji: Painting in the Pursuit of Pigmented Knowledge of Self and Other”, Archives of Asian Art 63/2 (2013): 189–207. his compassion for disadvantaged social and cultural minorities, and his lifelong social commitment to art and art education as essential for the advancement of a democratic society, Kitagawa was a key figure in establishing a new understanding of art as an essential part of human development in Japan.
Biography
Early life Kitagawa was born in 1894 Ushio (Shimada) in Shizuoka prefecture into a family tea producer.“北川民次 日本美術年鑑所載物故者記事" (Yearbook of Japanese art, obituaries: Kitagawa Tamiji), Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, https://www.tobunken.go.jp/materials/bukko/10035.html . Retrieved 2021-10-28. He graduated from Shizuoka Commercial High School in 1910 and began his studies of commerce at the Waseda University in Tokyo. During these years Kitagawa became increasingly interested in literature, theater and the arts.Murata Masahiro, “北川民次年譜” (Tamiji Kitagawa chronology), 北川民次展 / Kitagawa Tamiji Retrospective, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Kasama Nichidō Museum, n.p.: Committee of Exhibition “Kitagawa Tamiji Retrospective”, 1996, 193–212.
United States, 1914–1921 After leaving the university, Kitagawa travelled to the US in 1914. He first stayed with this brother, who lived in Portland, Oregon, then moved to Chicago, and to New York in 1916. In 1918, while working as a day-laborer, he took night classes from painters John Sloan and George B. Bridgman at the Art Students League of New York.Murata, Masahiro, “北川民次の絵画: メキシコ時代を中心に” (Tamiji Kitagawa’s paintings: Focusing on his years in Mexico), 北川民次展 / Kitagawa Tamiji Retrospective, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Kasama Nichidō Museum, n.p.: Committee of Exhibition “Kitagawa Tamiji Retrospective”, 1996, 11–20. In New York, Kitagawa was introduced to European and American art developments, such as the work of Paul Cézanne, but also about the writings of Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche. His encounters with artists such as Sloan, Japanese fellow painters Yasuo Kuniyoshi and Toshi Shimizu, whose paintings engaged with social issues and depicted scenes of the everyday lives of working people, were formative for the development for his own socially aware artistic stance. He also became interested in children's art and pedagogy. In 1920, Kitagawa left New York for the south, “seeking a more relaxed life”. After a short stay in Florida, during which he worked on a farm of a Japanese owner, he continued his journey to Havana and arrived in Mexico in 1921.
Mexico, 1921–1936 In 1922, Kitagawa began to work as a servant and tutor for a wealthy family in Mexico City. Taking a leave, he travelled around the country for several months, selling paintings of saints. He returned to Mexico City in 1923 and attended the Academy of San Carlos, graduating in 1924. At the recommendation of the academy's director Alfredo Ramos Martínez, an influential Mexican modernist painter, Kitagawa spent a year at Ramos Martínez’ Escuelas de Pintura al Aire Libre (Open Air Schools of Painting) located at the Churubusco monastery. As part of postrevolutionary social reforms implemented to enlighten and emancipate disadvantaged populations, these Open Air Schools offered children and adolescents from rural and indigenous communities the opportunity to express themselves freely through painting without formal instruction or constraints, while being treated by the teachers as comrades, instead of as subordinates. Kitagawa continued to engage in Ramos Martínez’ schools and became an assistant teacher at the Open Air School of Painting in Tlalpan in 1925. Works by the Open Air Schools’ students became internationally recognized, particularly after an exhibition in Madrid, Paris and Berlin in 1926 received praise from renowned artists such as Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and Tsuguharu Fujita.Kaneda, Takuya, “The Concept of Freedom in Art Education in Japan”, The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37/4 (Winter 2003): 12–19.
As an artist in his own right, Kitagawa participated in exhibitions of the artist group ¡30 30!, formed by artists who were Open Air School teachers and close to Ramos Martínez, and he held his first solo exhibition at the Hackett Galleries in New York in 1930. Kitagawa's works at that time were influenced by the works of Open Air School students as well as by Mexican muralism, key figures of which, such as Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco, Kitagawa encountered in the early 1930s. In 1932, Kitagawa was appointed director of a newly founded Open Air School in Taxco, a position he held until his return to Japan with his family in 1936. During this time, Fujita, Isamu Noguchi, and Kuniyoshi visited him at separate occasions.
Prewar life and career in Japan, 1936–1945 Upon his return to Japan in 1937, Kitagawa and his family lived briefly in Shizuoka and Seto near Nagoya before moving to Tokyo. At Fujita's recommendation, Kitagawa participated in the exhibitions of the Nika Art Association, of which he became a member, but also began to hold solo exhibitions at the Nichidō Gallery in Tokyo. Kitagawa's oil and tempera paintings, watercolors and linocuts from this time were recognized by the Japanese art world, particularly for his unique style that showed influences of Mexican muralism.
Fueled by his experiences of racial, social and cultural differences in the US and Mexico, Kitagawa developed the idea of “people’s art”, i.e., art by and for the common people that would empower them to resist oppression and to achieve freedom.Kikuchi, Yuko, “Minor Transnational Inter-Subjectivity in the People's Art of Kitagawa Tamiji”: Review of Japanese Culture and Society 26 (Dec. 2014), Commensurable Distinctions: Intercultural Negotiations of Modern and Contemporary Japanese Visual Culture: 266–284. Around 1938, Kitagawa began collaborating with art critic and collector Sadajirō Kubo, who travelled the US and Europe from 1938 until 1939 to discuss ideas about children's art with liberal/progressive art educators such as Franz Cižek and R. R. Tomlison, to promote new art pedagogical approaches in Japan. In 1941, Kitagawa and Kubo founded the publishing company Kodomo Bunka-kai (Children culture society) to produce illustrated books for children.Kumagai, Takaaki, Kitagawa Tamiji’s Art and Art Education: Translating Culture in Postrevolutionary Mexico and Modern Japan, PhD dissertation, University of Kansas, 2017. Kitagawa also joined Kubo as jury member for children's art exhibitions in Mooka and Fukui.
During the increasing militarization of Japan under its totalitarian regime, Kitagawa began to privately create paintings thematizing war and death. In 1943, Kitagawa and his family evacuated to Seto, which became the artist's base for the rest of his life.
Postwar artistic career and art pedagogy, 1945–1960 In the postwar years, Kitagawa resumed participating in exhibitions of the art associations Nika and the Bijutsu Dantai Rengō (Art association alliance) and other shows, including the Nihon Kokusai Bijutsuten. His paintings from this time depicted portraits, rural and urban landscapes, and scenes of the everyday lives of working people, but also allegorical motifs that included suffering, for example, contorted human bodies. They amalgamated postimpressionist, Cubist, Fauvist and expressionist styles of Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall and Rufino Tamayo.北川民次展 / Kitagawa Tamiji Retrospective, exh. cat., Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Kasama Nichidō Museum, n.p.: Committee of Exhibition “Kitagawa Tamiji Retrospective”, 1996.
Kitagawa in the postwar years emerged as a seminal figure within the art education reformation movement, not only as juror at children's art exhibitions, but also as educator with his own projects, as Kubo's collaborator, as public speaker on art education, and as author and publisher. Drawing from his experiences abroad, Kitagawa conceived of painting as a tool of subjective observation and interpretation of the everyday world that should nourish the individual's urge for freedom. His books (Children who paint) published in 1952, and (Children painting and education) in 1953 were widely read and resonated with the new liberal spirit.
Nagoya Zoo Art School From 1949 to 1951, Kitagawa organized the , a one-month art school during the summer holidays on the grounds of the Higashiyama Zoo in Nagoya.Takahashi, Shūji, “北川民次と児童美術教育” (Tamiji Kitagawa and young children art education), 北川民次展 / Kitagawa Tamiji Retrospective, exh. cat., Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Kasama Nichidō Museum, n.p.: Committee of Exhibition “Kitagawa Tamiji Retrospective”, 1996, 21–27. The school offered children and adolescents between the age of 7 and 15 years the opportunity to freely express themselves in an unconventional amusing setting, distinct from their stressful everyday life and conventional education environment, to release their creativity. To foster the creativity and development of personalities of the students, the teachers encouraged them to explore their environment playfully and to express themselves freely in oil paintings, gouaches, and woodcuts, without intervening by giving them instructions. The students were treated as fellows, avoiding conventional hierarchies. Among the students was artist Shūsaku Arakawa.
To give these art classes a permanent site, the in Nagoya opened in May 1951, but Kitagawa soon withdrew from the project, unsatisfied by the lack of governmental engagement.
Sōzō Biiku Kyōkai (Society for Creative Aesthetic Education)