Kanda Nissho (神田日勝; 1937–1970) was a Japanese

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...

and

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer mig ...

. He is known mostly for his

oil paintings Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...

. Nissho Kanda was born in 1937 in the

Nerima is a Special wards of Tokyo, special ward in Tokyo, Japan. The ward refers to itself as Nerima City. , the ward has an estimated population of 721,858, with 323,296 households and a population density of 15,013 persons per km2, while 15,326 f ...

district of

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

. When he was seven, his family moved to the Tokachi district in

Hokkaidō is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel. The la ...

to work the farmland there. Raised in the hard, unfamiliar life of a settler’s family, he eventually became a farmer himself. At the same time, he came to put his heart into

painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...

. His powerful works depicting scenes of daily life, each brushstroke imbued with his soul, gradually gained acclaim in the art world. However, in 1970, just when he was beginning to develop new modes of expression, he died of illness at the age of 32. His last painting of a horse was incomplete, with its body half finished.”Foreword”, Catalogue of ''Kanda Nissho: A Retrospective'', the Hokkaido Shimbun Press, 2020, p.19 In 1993, Kanda Nissho Memorial Museum of Art was established in Tokachi, Hokkaidō. Kanda’s unfinished last work, ''Horse'' serves as the symbol of the museum. Since his death, other works such as ''Interiors'' have been in the collection of the Hokkaidō Museum of Modern Art in

Sapporo ( ain, サッ・ポロ・ペッ, Satporopet, lit=Dry, Great River) is a city in Japan. It is the largest city north of Tokyo and the largest city on Hokkaido, the northernmost main island of the country. It ranks as the fifth most populous city ...

and the Hokkaidō Obihiro Museum of Art in Obihiro.

A list of representative works

*''Gomi-bako'' (ゴミ箱, "Garbage", 1961) *''Ie'' (家, "House", 1962) *''Hanba no fūkei'' (飯場の風景, "Laborars Lodging", 1963) *''Ushi'' (牛, "Cow", 1964) *''Uma'' (馬, "Horse", 1965) *''Seibutsu'' (静物, "Still Life", 1966) *''Gashitsu A'' (画室A, "Studio A", 1966) *''Gashitsu B'' (画室B, "Studio B", 1966) *''Hareta hi no fukei'' (晴れた日の風景, "A Sunny-day Scene", 1968) *''Yuki no nōjō'' (雪の農場, "Snow Farm", 1969) *''Shitsunai fūkei'' (室内風景, "Interiors", 1970) *''Uma (Zeppitsu, Mikan)'' (馬（絶筆・未完）, "Horse (last work, unfinished)", 1970)

Notes

External links

Kanda Nisshō Memorial Art Museum, Hokkaidō
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nissho, Kanda 1937 births People from Nerima 1970 deaths Japanese painters Modern painters