Iri Maruki1901~1995 丸木位里

Maruki Iri was a Japanese-style painter born on June 20, 1901 in Iimuro Village, Asa District, Hiroshima Prefecture. He had his first work selected for the Hiroshima Prefectural Art Exhibition in 1928 and pursued avant-garde, experimental ink painting from the prewar period onward. In 1941 he married the oil painter Akamatsu Toshiko (Maruki Toshi), and after entering Hiroshima just after the atomic bombing in August 1945, the couple jointly created the 15-panel cycle “The Hiroshima Panels” (Genbaku no zu, 1950–1982). They went on to depict other social themes such as the Battle of Okinawa and Minamata disease in large-scale ink paintings, making Iri a leading figure of socially engaged art in modern Japan. He died on October 19, 1995 at the age of 94.