Post-war Japanese Art

ROM recently received a donation of 192 Japanese modern and contemporary prints created from the 1950s to the 2000s, along with 24 ceramics and lacquerwares, from the estate of the late Shozo Uno and Edward “Ted” Johnston in Toronto.

Uno and Johnston lived together for more than 50 years and were always big fans of Japanese works of art. They collected a large number of prints, ceramics, lacquerwares, dolls, and other objects throughout their lives.

Uno and Johnston’s collection of modern and contemporary prints by 111 artists of different styles is exceptional in terms of size and diversity. Diversity and volume are the keys to understanding Japanese print works from the 1950s to the 1990s. After Japan’s defeat in the Second World War in 1945, print art came to be understood as the quintessential genre in the development of modern Japanese art.

Japanese modern prints were first collected by American officers who were stationed in Japan during the Occupation period (1945–1952). After the war, art objects were important components of economic reconstruction in Japan.

Drawing on the tradition of printmaking from the Edo period (1603–1868) and the already established global popularity of those prints, Americans considered print art as art representing Japan. Japanese printmakers and publishers quickly responded to this new foreign market, and their works became sought-after from the 1950s to the late 20th century, winning top awards in international print biennales and competitions. Thanks to their affordability and plurality, print works appealed to a large number of middle-class collectors throughout the U.S. whose collections are now found in many art museums, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Without strong promotion by some American collectors, these Japanese prints would not have been able to establish such high status in the world of modern print art. Johnston came to Canada from Belfast in Northern Ireland in the 1950s. Uno was born and raised in Japan and immigrated to Canada in the 1960s in an extraordinary trajectory for a young Japanese man who was part of the 2SLGBTQ+ community. The two met in Toronto in the 1960s and together amassed a large collection of modern prints that was not only formed by their personal preference but also reflected the socio-historical circumstances of the late 20th century.

The diverse works and artists included in this collection strengthen and diversify ROM’s already strong Japanese print collection, which features nearly 3,200 prints (mainly from the Edo and Meiji periods), the largest collection in Canada and one of the finest in North America. It is a collection that helps us understand the social aspects of art and cultural exchange and the ways Japanese art has been received and perceived outside the country.

Among the 111 artists in Uno and Johnston’s collection, 11 are women. Printmaking was a traditionally male-dominant artistic genre in Japan, but the post-war era witnessed an emergence of several women printmakers, of whom Reika Iwami (1927–2020) was one.

Iwami is considered the first Japanese woman print artist “to achieve the same status and worldwide recognition as male artists,” according to Mary and Norman Tolman in Collecting Modern Japanese Prints, Then & Now, with her powerful compositions; simple, abstract designs; and embossed and textured surfaces that emerge through limited colours. Besides pursuing her own artistic expression, Iwami was instrumental in founding the Joryū Hanga Kyōkai (Women’s Print Association) in 1956, the first of its kind and one that played a decisive role in bringing talented women printmakers to the forefront. These artists’ innovative, modernistic styles pushed the boundaries of Japan’s long printmaking tradition.

Here, Iwami, who was also a haiku poet, created a striking, abstract image of various shades of black ink with floating gold accents against an embossed background. This print, called Score of Water B, is simultaneously powerful and poetic and evokes ambivalent memories.

Starting in April 2025, prints from this collection will be on display on the main floor of the Museum through multiple rotations.

Akiko Takesue is Bishop White Committee Associate Curator of Japanese Art & Culture at ROM.