Weather Vane and Sculpture Cast
Yasuo KUNIYOSHI
(American, born Japan, 1893 - 1953)
Weather Vane and Sculpture Cast
Date1933
Mediumcharcoal, crayon and Chinese white on paper
Dimensionsmat window: 19 1/8 × 15 1/8 in. (48.6 × 38.4 cm)
frame: 29 1/2 x 25 1/2 x 2 in. (74.9 x 64.8 x 5.1 cm)
ClassificationDRAWINGS
Credit LineSBMA, Museum purchase, American Deaccession Fund
Object number1989.22
Subject(s)
- fruit
- horse
- still lifes
Collection
- 20th century American
Sub-Collection(s)
- Modernism
On View
Not on viewLabel TextThis charcoal drawing echoes Matisse’s use of charcoal with its soft smudging and erasures that resemble incised lines, as if scratched into the surface of the drawing. Is there, perhaps, a residual echo of Japanese monochromatic ink painting in the drawing’s overall aesthetic? This is the perpetual question when regarding the work of an immigrant artist like the Japanese-born Kuniyoshi, who consciously assimilated to Western Modernist ideals during a period of xenophobia between the World Wars. The subject relates to that of the large oil painting on view in Preston Morton Gallery nearby, which includes the weather vane in the shape of a galloping horse, various types of fruit, and the same hollowed out plaster seen from the back. The drawing provided the model for a poster to advertise a show for the Society of Independent Artists in 1934. Kuniyoshi’s choice to use an oval format, whose edge is conspicuously transgressed by the tail of the centralized horse and the bottom edge of a pear, echoes the proclivities of his School of Paris predecessors, Picasso and Braque.
