Toshiko Okanoue

Early career Born in Kochi and raised in Tokyo, Okanoue began to make photo collages while studying fashion and drawing at the Bunka Gakuin in Tokyo in the early 1950s. The young Okanoue initially knew little of art history or the Surrealist movement.

In 1952, a classmate from Keisen Girls' High School introduced Okanoue to poet and art critic Shuzo Takiguichi, a leading figure in the Japanese Surrealist movement, who would help introduce her to the wider art world, including the work of European Surrealists, such as German artist Max Ernst, who was an influence on her subsequent work. She exhibited in two exhibits including, solo shows in 1953 and 1956 at the Takemiya Gallery in Tokyo,

Artistic style In post-war Japan, shortages of goods meant that foreign goods filled the market and fashion and lifestyle magazines such as Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, and Life magazine provided the raw materials for Okanoue's collages.

Early end of professional career, obscurity and rediscovery Like many women of her generation, marriage meant the end of her career. In 1958, at only 28, she stopped producing collage work when she married painter Fujino Kazutomo, thought she would continue to draw and paint non-professionally. and a solo exhibit entitled "Toshiko Okanoue's Photo Collages: Droplets of Dreams" was presented in Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance Co. South Gallery. A first monograph of her work was published in 2002, entitled "Drop of Dreams: Toshiko Okanoue: Works 1950-1956."

In 2019, the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum presented a one-artist show of works of Okanoue entitled, "TOSHIKO OKANOUE, Photo Collage : The Miracle of Silence" as well as an exhibit catalogue of the same name.

Publications

Writings and catalogues