This poster is about an art exhibition being held at the Kumamoto Prefectural Art Museum
featuring the works of Hamada Chimei. Many years ago, I posted this blurb about Hamada Chimei on the Kumamoto-i mailing list:
— start quote — Chimei Hamada lives and works in the region of his birth, in Kumamoto prefecture in Western Japan. From 1934-1939, he studied at the Tokyo University of Fine Arts, then known as the Tokyo Art School and, in 1940, was drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army and sent to China. He returned home in 1945, injured, but his years of military service were an enduring influence on his work. From 1949-1959, Hamada was a member of the Independent Artists’ Association. In 1950 he began work on his Elegy for a New Conscript series, monochromatic etchings based on the wartime experiences of a new military recruit. The Elegy series depicts the suffering of soldier and war victim alike, as well as the general absurdity and misery of war. One etching, Sentinel, (1951), was awarded a prize at the Fourth International Exhibition of Black and White in Lugano, Switzerland, in 1956. Hamada has continued to produce works that are critical or sarcastic commentaries on government and society. His first solo exhibition was at the Formes Gallery in Tokyo (1953). In 1975, the Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art exhibited his ninety-nine etchings, produced from 1938-1975. Hamada’s work has also been presented in solo exhibitions at the Kamakura Museum of Modern Art in Kanagawa (1979) and the Japan Gallery of The British Museum (1980). — end quote — http://www.legacy-project.org/index.php?page=artist_detail&artistID=73
If you would like to see a representative piece with an English explanation go to
http://www.legacy-project.org/index.php?page=art_detail&artID=647
to see his “Sentinel” from his “Elegy of a New Conscript Series.”
See also https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/kumamoto-i/conversations/topics/2750 Highly recommended!
– Kirk
http://www.museum.pref.kumamoto.jp/event_cal/pub/Detail.aspx?c_id=10&id=65&type=top&trk_kbn=A