1. Toko Shinoda's oeuvre was predominantly executed using the traditional means and media of East Asian calligraphy, but her resulting abstract ink paintings and prints express a nuanced visual affinity with the bold black brushstrokes of mid-century abstract expressionism.
Toko Shinoda has had solo exhibitions at the Seibu Museum at Art, Tokyo in 1989, the Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu in 1992, the Singapore Art Museum in 1996, the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in 2003, the Sogo Museum of Art in 2021, the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery in 2022, and among many others.
Toko Shinoda was a prolific writer published more than 20 books.
Toko Shinoda was born in Dairen, Kwantung Leased Territory, on 28 March 1913.
Toko Shinoda's father, Raijiro, worked as the manager of a tobacco factory; her mother, Joko, was a housewife.
In 1925, Toko Shinoda entered a women's higher school, where she received calligraphy instruction from a tutor named Setsudo Shimono.
In 1936, at age twenty-three, Toko Shinoda ran away from home and began to earn a living by teaching calligraphy.
In 1940, Toko Shinoda realized her first solo show at the retail stationery store Kyukyodo in Ginza.
Meanwhile, Toko Shinoda did not have any master to follow or reject, and she was marginalized in the male-dominated calligraphic community.
Toko Shinoda belonged to the Calligraphic Art Institute from 1950 until 1956, and participated in the fifth Mainichi Calligraphy Exhibition in 1953.
Further, Toko Shinoda was commissioned to create large-scale ink murals, including for the Japan Pavilion designed by Tange at the four-hundredth anniversary of Sao Paulo in 1954, and the Japan Pavilion designed by Kenmochi Isamu at the Washington State Fourth International Trade Fair in 1955, among other venues.
In 1954, along with several leading male calligraphers, Toko Shinoda was selected for a group show entitled Japanese Calligraphy at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Importantly, Toko Shinoda was not just a passive beneficiary of postwar internationalism and popular interest in Japanese culture in the Euro-American sphere.
In 1956, with an invitation from the Swetzoff Gallery in Boston to hold a one-person exhibition, the 43-year-old Toko Shinoda embarked on a solo journey to the US.
In 1956, the famous photographer Hans Namuth, who was known for his portraits of Jackson Pollock and other abstract expressionist painters, captured Toko Shinoda executing an abstract ink painting on paper.
In 1974, Toko Shinoda was commissioned by Zojo-ji Temple to produce sliding screen paintings that spanned 95 feet and extended over three panels.
Toko Shinoda had solo shows at the prominent Betty Parsons Gallery, New York City, in 1965,1968,1971, and 1977.
Kimihiko Nakamura points out that "Toko Shinoda consciously maintained her distance from the patriarchal and hierarchical Japanese art world and, with her critical success outside her homeland, established herself as an acclaimed international artist".
Toko Shinoda radicalized the traditional medium by pushing abstraction and dynamism to the extreme.
Toko Shinoda's work was shown not only in calligraphy exhibitions but in exhibitions of abstract art.
Toko Shinoda became the first Japanese artist to hold solo show at the Singapore Art Museum in 1996.
In 2016, Toko Shinoda was honored on a postage stamp issued by Japan Post Holdings.
Toko Shinoda was the only Japanese artist to have been celebrated in this manner while still alive.
Toko Shinoda died on March 1,2021, at a hospital in Tokyo at the age of 107.