Kishio Takeda is marching to a different drummer.
Attending the American Academy back in his twenties,
he put his art career on hold
until he retired from business,
and then went right back to school
to pick up where he had left off.
And his touristy, picture post-card vision
is marginal to even the marginal
artworld of contemporary realism.
But there's something so personal about it,
it feels like it really is the world
he shares with his Japanese-American family.
These paintings are not made for tourists,
but they have been made by a tourist.
With a lot of care.
This exhibit
coincides with two great exhibits
of Japanese art at the Art Institute:
Beyond Golden Clouds (5 centuries of Japanese screens)
and the prints of Ito Shinsui,
the greateest Ukiyo-e artist of the 20th. C.
So, he's in good company this month
in Chicago.
These are probably the two things he holds most dear.
(and who hasn't seen Florence
stretched out below
from that nearby hilltop?)
American Regionalism
of the 30's and 40's
is having something of a revival these days.
And Kishio fits right in.
