Japan Art and Inagaki Tomoo (1902-1980): Cats and Flowers
Lee Jay Walker
Modern Tokyo Times
Inagaki Tomoo (1902-1980) was born in Tokyo. He was a young child during the last decade of the Meiji Restoration (1868-1912). However, this dynamic period left a lasting impression.
He changed direction from working in the steel sector to focusing on art. Hence, he studied art for two years after leaving the steel sector.
The British Museum says, “Inagaki is best known for his many prints of cats which gained him a wide following in the West, but the first of these was not produced until 1951 after nearly thirty years as a typical artist of the Creative Print Movement. He was obliged to make his living until that time by teaching and various sorts of commercial design work such as ‘ex libris’ plates and posters.”
The three art pieces (prints) by Inagaki Tomoo in this article were completed during the 1930s and 1940s.
He admired Onchi Koshiro and Kiratsuka Un’ichi – and associated with these two esteemed individuals.
In the post-war period, Inagaki Tomoo and others in Japan with great artistic skills were very important for Japanese soft power. Accordingly, he built bridges and became popular in America and Europe.
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