Toko Shinoda
Born: 1913 in Darien, Manchuria, died in 2021
Medium: Lithography with hand brush strokes paintings


Toko Shinoda began her distinguished art career as a calligrapher and painter. From the age of 6, she diligently practiced traditional brush painting of Japanese characters. It was not until 1959, on a trip to the United States, that she was first introduced to the print medium of lithography in New York. An internationally acclaimed artist, Shinoda currently does paintings as well as lithographs. She is known for bold works with brush strokes that characteristically overlap and angle elegantly, often with an additional line or two hand-painted in color, to enhance the composition.

Miss Shinoda is a particularly elegant woman, who always wears kimono, even in modern and cosmopolitan Tokyo. She offers ample evidence of her deep understanding of the Japanese artistic principle of using blank space as an integral part in design. She has no equal in the use of forceful, energetic and subtle brush strokes, combining the traditional with the contemporary, the power of blackness with whiteness, and Oriental calligraphy with the Occidental medium of lithography.

Exhibitions:
Tokyo
Chicago
Paris, France
Berlin, Germany
New York, NY
Washington, DC
Brussels, Belgium
Dublin, Ireland
Pittsburgh, PA
Renfretti, Finland
Seattle, WA

Collections:
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco
Guggenheim Museum, New York
Chicago Haifa Art Museum, Israel
Japan Academie, Rome
Fogg Museum, Boston
Cincinnati Art Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
Hague National Museum, the Netherlands
Museum Folkwang, Essen
British Museum, London
Museum of Modern Art, NY
Ren Brown Collection, Bodega Bay, CA
David Rockefeller Center
Fine Arts Museums, San Francisco