Morita Shiryū (June 24, 1912 – December 1, 1998) was a postwar Japanese artist who revolutionized Japanese

calligraphy Calligraphy (from el, link=y, καλλιγραφία) is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined ...

into a global avant-garde aesthetic. He was born in

Toyooka, Hyōgo is a city in the northern part of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 78,348 in 37769 households and a population density of 110 persons per km².The total area of the city is . Geography Toyooka is located in ...

, Japan with the name Morita Kiyoshi (森田清). About 1925, he adopted the art name Morita Shiryū (森田子龍). "Shiryū" (子龍) translates a "dragon child". Around 1937, he moved to

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 37.46 ...

to study

under Ueda Sōkyū (上田桑鳩). In 1943, he returned home, and five years later, he moved to

Kyoto City Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the c ...

to immerse himself in its art community. He was a founding member of the

Bokujinkai Bokujinkai (墨人会, “People of the Ink,” est. 1952) is a Japanese calligraphy collective, research group, and exhibition society. It was founded by the calligraphers Shiryū Morita, Yūichi Inoue, Sōgen Eguchi, Yoshimichi Sekiya, and Boku ...

(‘Group of People of the Ink’), an association of calligraphy artists who envisioned to bring the art of calligraphy to the position of international prominence. He edited the monthly journal '' Bokubi'' (墨美, Beauty of Ink) from 1951 to 1981. He participated in meetings and exhibitions of the cross-genre study and discussion group Gendai Bijutsu Kondankai (現代美術懇談会, Contemporary Art Discussion Group, short: ゲンビ Genbi). While at the

, Morita launched artistic and intellectual exchange with many prominent international abstract artists including

Franz Kline Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mot ...

Pierre Soulages Pierre Jean Louis Germain Soulages (; 24 December 1919 – 26 October 2022) was a French painter, printmaker, and sculptor. In 2014, President François Hollande of France described him as "the world's greatest living artist." His works are held ...

Pierre Alechinsky Pierre Alechinsky (born 19 October 1927) is a Belgian artist. He has lived and worked in France since 1951. His work is related to tachisme, abstract expressionism, and lyrical abstraction. Life Alechinsky was born in Schaerbeek. In 1944 he ...

, and

Walasse Ting Walasse Ting (, 13 October 1929 – May 17, 2010) was a Chinese-American visual artist and poet. His colorful paintings have attracted critical admiration and a popular following. Common subjects include nude women and cats, birds and other a ...

. ''Ryu chi Ryu'' (''Dragon Knows Dragon'') from 1964 is an example of Morita's large scale (42.8 x 86 inch) calligraphic paintings that incorporate unusual materials (aluminum flake pigment in polyvinyl acetate medium, yellow alkyd varnish on paper), and are devoid of textural meaning.Salel, Stephen, "Conjuring Dragons: Morita Shiryū and the Globalization of Abstract Expressionism" in Papanikolas, Theresa and Stephen Salel, Stephen, ''Abstract Expressionism, Looking East from the Far West'', Honolulu Museum of Art, 2017, p. 41-47

References

* Bogdanova-Kummer, Eugenia, ''Bokujinkai: Japanese Calligraphy and the Postwar Avant-Garde'', Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2020, ISBN 978-90-04-43706-7 *Bogdanova-Kummer, Eugenia, ‘Contested Comparisons: Franz Kline and Japanese Calligraphy’, in AnnMarie Perl (ed.), ''In Focus: ''Meryon'' 1960–1 by Franz Kline'', Tate Research Publication, 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/in-focus/meryon/japanese-calligraphy, accessed 26 February 2019. *Bogdanova-Kummer, Eugenia, “Morita Shiryū: His Path to the World", in Inada Sousai (ed.), ''Morita Shiryū Catalogue Raisonné: 1952-1998'', Kyoto, Japan: Soryusha, 2019 *Inada, Sousai (ed.), ''Morita Shiryū Catalogue Raisonné: 1952-1998'', Kyoto, Japan: Soryusha, 2019 *Morita, Shiryū, ''Sho: Modern Calligraphy by Shiryu Morita'', Mi Chou Gallery, New York, 1963 * Morita, Shiryū, ''Works of Shiryū Morita, Selected by the Artist'', Bokubi Press, Tokyo, Japan, 1970 * National Gallery of Canada, ''Shiryu Morita: an Exhibition Selected and Organized by Tetsuo Yamada, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1969 * Salel, Stephen, "Conjuring Dragons: Morita Shiryū and the Globalization of Abstract Expressionism" in Papanikolas, Theresa and Stephen Salel, Stephen, ''Abstract Expressionism, Looking East from the Far West'', Honolulu Museum of Art, 2017,

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morita, Shiryu Japanese calligraphers 20th-century Japanese painters 20th-century Japanese calligraphers