24 Facts About Yasuo Kuniyoshi

Yasuo Kuniyoshi was a Japanese-American painter, photographer and printmaker.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi immigrated to the United States in 1906 at 17, choosing not to attend military school in Japan.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi originally intended to study English and return to Japan to work as a translator.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi spent some time in Seattle, before enrolling at the Los Angeles School of Art and Design.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi spent three years in Los Angeles, discovering his love for the arts.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi then moved to New York City to pursue an art career.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi studied briefly at the National Academy and later at the Independent School of Art in New York City, and then studied under Kenneth Hayes Miller at the Art Students League of New York.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi later taught at the Art Students League of New York in New York City and in Woodstock, New York.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi was an active member of the artistic community there for the rest of his life.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi was awarded the Temple Gold Medal in 1934 from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi was an Honorary member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and first president of Artists Equity Association, now known as New York Artists Equity Association.

In 1948, Yasuo Kuniyoshi became the first living artist chosen to have a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

In 1922, Yasuo Kuniyoshi learned about zinc plate lithography and adopted the technique.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi continued making lithographs throughout the remainder of his artistic career.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi was known for his still-life paintings of common objects, and figurative subjects like female circus performers and nudes.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi combined this with Western painting in the way he applies the bold colors in oil on canvas; in Japan, traditional painters use ink on either silk or rice paper.

In 1925, Yasuo Kuniyoshi painted his Circus Girl Resting, after a visit to Paris.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi painted a provocative woman of larger proportions, similar to Strong Woman and Child.

In 1928, Goodrich notes, Yasuo Kuniyoshi spent most of his time in Paris with his friend Jules Pascin, and it was on this later trip that Yasuo Kuniyoshi realized that his art had grown stale.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi's work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics.

Goodrich points out that Yasuo Kuniyoshi did not work with models for the entire painting process.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi married his first wife Katherine Schmidt, who in 1919 lost her American citizenship due to her relationship with Kuniyoshi who was ineligible for American citizenship.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi never received his citizenship due to harsh immigration laws.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi died on May 14,1953, aged 63 and is interred at the Woodstock Artists Cemetery in Woodstock, New York.