Kojin Kudo1915~2011 工藤甲人

Kudo Kojin (real name Gisuke), born on July 30, 1915 in Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture, was a leading Japanese-style painter (Nihonga) of the postwar era. He moved to Tokyo in 1934 and studied Nihonga at the Kawabata Painting School under Okamura Kien and Fukuda Toyoshiro, later becoming a central member of the Sogakai association. He moved from Hirosaki to Hiratsuka, Kanagawa, in 1962 and went on to teach at Tokyo University of the Arts as an assistant professor from 1971 and full professor from 1978, becoming professor emeritus after his retirement in 1983, and serving as visiting professor at Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts from 1988. His distinctive style combined finely drawn insects, small creatures, and plants against broad fields of mineral pigments such as gunjo blue, evoking nostalgic, mystical, dreamlike inner landscapes that opened a new horizon in modern Nihonga.