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What Japanese Women Artists Painted during the WWII— the Paintings by Hasegawa Haruko and Other Japanese Women Painters

고카츠 레이코 1

1일본 도치기 현립 미술관

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ABSTRACT

The author conducted a comprehensive survey of the Japanese women painters (of mainly western-style painting) before and during the wartime for the exhibition entitled Japanese women artists before and after World War II, 1930s-1950s held at Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts in 2001. These women artists had been lost in oblivion in the postwar history for long time. The research revealed the reality of enormous gender inequality in the system of education, exhibition and even entire society at that time. It ruled all aspects of both public and private art school, official exhibitions, and many art organizations. On the other hand, the research also searched out the ambitious activities of women artists under such male dominated society. In order to ensure their opportunities to exhibit their works and further their pursuit of artistic skill, they worked together cohesively to establish art organizations and group exhibitions exclusive to women. These facts raise a question; what these Japanese women artists painted under the wartime circumstance in late 1930s and 1940s? On the occasion of the recent discovery of hitherto-unknown painting by Hasegawa Haruko (1895-1967) in which she painted a woman in the battlefield, this paper was written to introduce activities of and works by such women painters including Hasegawa, Migishi Setsuko (1905-1999), Nakata Kikuyo (Yoshie)(1902-1995) and Yoshida Fujiwo (1887-1987) during the wartime. By painting women working on the home front and boys in military training, the women artists did support the national policy of the Empire of Japan that was then prosecuting the war. While the influence of their activities is still questionable, it indicates that women also share part of the wartime responsibility. Though socially underestimated and thought to be inferior to men, women painters were not standing by doing nothing, but were actively engaged in warfare by possible means. This paper introduced their activities in detail and at length in order neither to appreciate nor to denounce their activities and works, but to figure out how and why the women, willingly or unavoidably, took part in the warfare, and to examine what roles and meanings their paintings and illustrations bore. Meanwhile, it is left for next occasion to introduce wartime works by Akamatsu Toshiko (Maruki Toshi, 1912-2000) and to explore continuity and discontinuity between during and after the war in the activities of the women artists including Hasegawa Haruko.

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