Kobayakawa Kiyoshi's representation of modern women in the print Shin-hanga

Born in 1899 in Fukuoka , Kobayakawa Kiyoshi occupies a unique place within the Shin-hanga movement ("new prints"), this artistic movement which, at the turn of the 20th century, aimed to reconcile the Japanese tradition of wood engraving with modern aesthetic influences, particularly Western ones .

Trained in Nihonga painting by Kaburaki Kiyokata , a master of the style, Kobayakawa distinguished himself from 1918 through his participation in artistic salons, where he exhibited refined works, in the tradition of the great masters of bijin-ga (美人画) — these idealized representations of feminine beauties, inherited from Ukiyo-e.

The year 1924 marked a major turning point in his career. At the Teiten Exhibition (Imperial Fine Arts Exhibition), he presented the work Okiku of Nagasaki , a female portrait of rare finesse. This participation in an event organized by the Japanese Academy of Arts earned him national recognition. From then on, he collaborated with prestigious publishers such as Watanabe Shōzaburō —a major architect of the international dissemination of Shin-hanga—and Hasegawa Shōten , renowned for his refined prints.

Kobayakawa Kiyoshi, Tipsy de la série Kindai jiseishō no uchi (La Mode d'Aujourd'hui) (planche n°1), 1930, estampe, format ō-ōban vertical

In the 1930s, Kobayakawa began a bold stylistic transformation. He moved away from classical aesthetic codes to focus on modan garū (モダン・ガール), or moga — literally, modern girls . These young Japanese women of the 1920s and 30s, dressed in Western style, wearing makeup, smoking or drinking in public, symbolized the emergence of a new feminine model : free, urban, and transgressive.

Key series: Kindai jiseishō no uchi (“Today’s Fashion”), 1930–1931

Produced in collaboration with the engraver Takano Shichinosuke and the printer Ono Tomisaburō , this series explores a resolutely contemporary femininity. Some of these prints are even self-published by Kobayakawa, which demonstrates her personal commitment to the project.

Among the most striking works in this series is Tipsy , arguably his most iconic image. It depicts a seated woman, wearing makeup and jewelry, holding a glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Her frank and confident gaze reflects a rejection of convention and a definite anchoring in modernity. This work, at the crossroads of Japanese and Western influences, disrupts the codes of classic bijin-ga.

Kobayakawa's interest in moga is not merely formal or aesthetic: it reflects the sociocultural tensions of interwar Japan , torn between the preservation of its traditional identity and the forces of rapid Westernization, particularly in urban environments. By reinterpreting bijin-ga through the prism of shin-hanga, Kobayakawa introduces a hybrid aesthetic , where ancestral Japan coexists with the symbols of globalized modernity.

Her works thus evoke a cultural transition , a shift where feminine beauty is no longer reduced to passivity or the Confucian ideal, but becomes a vector of social change .

Kobayakawa Kiyoshi, Okiku de Nagasaki, 1926, peinture, 24,1 x 20,5 cm (https://www.metmuseum.org)

Although he died prematurely in 1948 , Kobayakawa Kiyoshi left behind a coherent and daring body of work that is now highly valued in museum and private collections . His prints are included in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston , the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo , and the British Museum .

Today he is considered a renovator of bijin-ga , on a par with his contemporaries Ito Shinsui and Torii Kotondo , but with a more modern and subversive touch.

Through his sensitive and modern take on femininity, Kobayakawa Kiyoshi contributed to the evolution of Japanese printmaking towards a bold and introspective visual language. By integrating the transgressive figures of the moga into the repertoire of bijin-ga, he offers an implicit critique of the social norms of his time , while profoundly renewing the forms and contents of Shin-hanga .

Bibliographic references

• Brown, Kendall H. Visions of Japan: Shin-hanga Prints from the Honolulu Museum of Art . Honolulu Museum of Art, 2009.

• Merritt, Helen, and Yamada, Nanako. Guide to Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: 1900–1975 . University of Hawaii Press, 1995.

• Marks, Andreas. Japanese Woodblock Prints: Artists, Publishers and Masterworks 1680–1900 . Tuttle Publishing, 2012.

• Fujisawa, Chika. Bijin-ga and the Changing Face of Japanese Femininity . Tokyo University Press, 2017.

• Okakura, Kakuzō. The Book of Tea . 1906. (For the aesthetic and philosophical background).