Toko Shinoda1913~2021 篠田桃紅

SHINODA Toko (real name Shinoda Masuko, March 28, 1913 – March 1, 2021) was a Japanese artist, printmaker, and essayist. Born in Dalian, China, she returned to Tokyo at age two and was first taught calligraphy by her father at around age five, otherwise studying largely on her own. From around 1947 she began creating abstract works that transcended traditional calligraphy, and in the 1950s she joined the Shodo Geijutsuin and engaged with avant-garde calligraphers before traveling alone to the United States in 1956, where she based herself in New York and was influenced by Abstract Expressionism. After returning to Japan in 1958, she became one of the first Japanese artists to gain international acclaim as an abstract artist working with sumi ink, exhibiting widely across the U.S. and Europe. Her 2015 essay collection “What I Realized at Age 103” became a bestseller with over 450,000 copies sold; she died of old age on March 1, 2021, at age 107.