User:Gallery Koijma/Kojima Zenzaburō

Zenzaburo Kojima（児島善三郎, Kojima Zenzaburo, 13 February 1893 - 22 March 1962）was a Japanese painter.

Biography
Zenzaburo Kojima was born on February 13, 1893 as the elderst son of a paper wholesaler in Fukuoka.

In 1907, Kojima entered Fukuoka Prefectural Shuyukan High School. He started a painting club "The Palette club" with Kenichi Nakamura and other friends in 9th grade. He studied Western-stype painting through oil painting and western magazines.

Kojima graduated Fukuoka Prefectural Shuyukan High School in 1912 and went to Tokyo aspiring to be a painter against his father's wishes in 1913. He went to a private school of western-style painting in order to prepare for the highest institution of art, Tokyo Bijutsu Gakko (the predecessor of Tokyo University of Art), but failed the examination. From this time on, he resotred to self-instruction in oil painting.

Two years after arriving in Tokyo, Zenzaburo was forced to go back to Fukuoka in prder to receive treatment for tuberculosis for five years. In 1920, he came back to Tokyo again. He settled in Itabashi and drewpastoral scenery of Itabashi. In the following year, he build a new stuido in Yoyogi, and his work was accepted for the first time by the famous exhibition sponsored by Nikakai. He received the award given to ourstanding works, Nika Award in 1922.

Zenzaburo had left Fukuoka in March of 1925 for France to pursuit his study. He focused on learning the fundamentals of painting in the first two years, visiting Louvre Museum, and travelling in May, 1926, around Italy to learn classic techniques of painting. In Italy, he concentrated mostly on portraits, absorbing from Michelangelo's powerful expressions of human body and Tiziano's voluptuous nudes.

To put to practice what he had learned, Zenzaburo painted many portraits of women. In this series of portraits including the Woman Holding a Mirror, now in the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, and Sonya Standing which is said to be a masterpiece among portraits in the history of Japan's modern western-style art, a strong influence of Zrenaissance art can be seen in the depiction of the voluminous bodies.

After returning to Japan in July of 1928, Zenzaburo started working again in the Yoyogi studio. In group nudes, he simplified the outlines and forms, and proceeded with stylization while continuing to emphasize the three-dimensional quality and the sense of volumn. The nude portraits of Japanese models were the result of Zenzaburo's pursuit of modern realism that reminds us of Matisse and Derain.

Although he was recommended to become a member of Nikakai upon his return to Japan, he withdrew from the association soon after and founded with his fellow artists the Dokuritsu Bijutsu Kyokai in 1930.

In the spring of 1936, Zenzaburo moved, in search of more opulent nature, to Kokubunji in Musashino, which is in teh suburbs of Tokyo. During Kokubuji period, he actively held one-man exhibitions and painted landscapes by traveling widely to such places as Hakone and Sapporo.

In July of 1951, convinced that he has painted all that the nature in Kokubunji could offer, Zenzaburo moved his studio to Ogikubo, also in Tokyo. However, in 1952, he had to struggle with tuberculosis which recurred. This forced him to paint mostly flowers, still-life, and portraits in the studio.

On March 22, 1962, he died of liver cancer at the age of 69.

Representative work

 * Sonya Standing　1927　The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura & Hayama
 * the Woman Holding a Mirror　1928
 * Garçonne　1928　The Miyagi Museum of Art
 * Mountain Stream　1937
 * Planting Rice　1943　HIROSHIMA MUSEUM OF ART
 * Kokubunji　1947
 * Still Life(Still Life with Jar)　1949　The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
 * Road to the Japanese Alps　1951　The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
 * Callas and Giraffe Flowers　1954　Artizon Museum
 * Atami　1957