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Scholten Japanese Art

NEW ACQUISITIONS 

Chizuko Yoshida: A Vibrant Legacy

Summer 2025

We are honored to announce the gallery’s most recent works by Chizuko Yoshida (1924-2017) received from the Yoshida Family Collection and available now on our website.

Before joining the Yoshida family by marriage to the younger son Hodaka, Chizuko Inoue lived a life immersed in the arts. From a young age she studied music, played the violin, and performed in competitive dance including tap, ballet and Japanese dances. After graduating from the Sato Girl’s High School in Tokyo in 1941, Chizuko studied traditional Western-style realism including life drawing at the Hongo Art Institute, and oil painting privately in the studio of Kitaoka Fumio (1918-2007) who was also a woodblock printmaker. In the late 1940s, Chizuko joined a group of avant-garde artists who called themselves the Century Society (Seiki no kai) and eventually moved away from academic realism and began painting abstract compositions.

In 1956, Chizuko co-founded the Joryu Hanga Kyokai (Women’s Printmakers Association), together with nine other printmakers including Minami Keiko (1911-2004), Iwami Reika (1927-2020), Enokido Maki (b. 1938), Shishido Tokuko (b. 1930), and Kobayashi Donge (b. 1926). Active through 1965, the group provided a crucial vehicle for talented female printmakers to showcase their work. From 1987 onward, Chizuko held solo and group exhibitions both in Japan and abroad.

In the mid-1980s Chizuko received large commissions from corporate patrons. A major construction company funded a series of butterfly-themed designs corresponding to the seasons. The designs were issued in limited editions of 100 numbered impressions and were dispersed through the corporation for display in various locations such as hotels and office buildings. As the entire editions were purchased by the company, Chizuko retained only 10 or 15 artist’s proofs of each design, as such only proofs were ever available directly from the artist.

The following year in 1985 a newly established high-end mail order company commissioned a series of larger format butterfly and floral prints that were marketed as luxury collectibles, indicating that the editions were limited to only 20 to 40 available impressions, with Chizuko perhaps retaining the other half of the edition.

Later in her career, Chizuko blended zinc-plate photoetching with traditional woodblock printing techniques. Chizuko contributed this work to the prestigious collaborative series, One Hundred Views of Tokyo, Message to the 21st Century, a decade-long project featuring 100 prints from 100 artists, which was conceived and published by the Japan Print Association starting in 1989.

To explore these remarkable works, click here.

 

PAST RECENT EXHIBITION

Binnie Meisho

May 1 – 30, 2025

We are pleased to present Binnie Meisho, an exhibition of landscape woodblock prints and paintings by Paul Binnie, celebrating the release of El Capitan, the latest addition to his ongoing series Travels with the Master, opening May 1 through 30.

Binnie Meisho includes over 70 landscape oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, and woodblock prints, featuring scenes that Binnie depicted from his many travels; including his years in Japan where he honed his woodblock printmaking practice, to famous sites in the US and Europe that he visited while following in the footsteps of his artistic mentor, Hiroshi Yoshida for his Travels with the Master series, to images of his homeland, Scotland, and Black’s Beach in San Diego, California, where he now resides.

Explore the full collection of these exceptional works online now by clicking here.

 

Recent Additions Available

We are constantly updating our inventory with new prints. To browse for works by artist, or search by title, series or keyword, visit our Recent Additions here

 

Past Exhibitions

Explore our past exhibitions online—each one a unique journey through exceptional art and craftsmanship. Discover them all here.

 

About the Gallery

Scholten Japanese Art is a private gallery specializing in Japanese woodblock prints and paintings. We offer ukiyo-e from the 18th to 20th centuries, including shin hanga, sosaku hanga, and Japanese-style woodblock prints produced by Western artists. Located in a spacious suite in the old Meurice Hotel, just steps from Central Park South, we enjoy meeting with visitors one on one in order to best learn about your interests and share the collection with you.

We opened its doors September 2000 in a renovated townhouse on New York’s Upper East Side. In May of 2003, Scholten moved to a private suite in the old Meurice Hotel located on 58th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. We initially planned to stay in midtown temporarily, however, we were pleasantly surprised to find the central location in the heart of Manhattan offers advantages in accessibility for both local collectors (who frequently have business in the area) and proximity to numerous hotels for out-of-town visitors. In 2009 we decided to expand to a larger space in the same building which was renovated to provide more exhibition space as well as a separate ‘Print Room’ devoted to our library and large inventory of woodblock prints. We organize at least two public exhibitions every year during Asia Week (both March and September), but we always have a selection of prints and paintings on view throughout the year.