Rock Island Today

Krannert Art Museum exhibition explores suibokuga and watercolor paintings by Shozo Sato

 A Krannert Art Museum exhibition features paintings by Shozo Sato, the founder of Japan House and an emeritus professor of theatre and of art at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, that explore landscapes of the United States, floral motifs and memories of postwar Japan. 

In examining 20th and 21st century work by an artist who immigrated to the U.S., embracing Japanese traditions and aesthetics at a time when “West was considered best,” “The Ink Wash Paintings of Shozo Sato” focuses on an area that has not been well-studied by art historians, exhibition curator Maureen Warren said.

An artist-in-residence at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts for more than 20 years, Sato is a master of kabuki theater, calligraphy, ikebana flower arranging and tea ceremony, as well as painting.

“Shozo Sato is beloved on campus and internationally. But because his painting was a private practice, just for himself, it’s not been explored,” Warren said.

Suibokuga, a type of Japanese black ink painting, is a more than 1,000-year-old tradition emphasizing expressive lines that capture the essence of a subject, rather than its literal appearance, she said. While most of Sato’s artwork in the exhibition is within that tradition, his formal arts education in post-World War II Japan embraced Western styles. At that time, many Japanese artists abandoned traditional Japanese painting for Western media, such as oil painting, as well as abstraction and conceptual art, Warren said.

Original source can be found here