Migishi Setsuko was a prominent Japanese Yōga painter. Migishi is known as a pioneer of the Japanese western style of oil painting.
Biography
Born in Ichinomiya, into a wealthy family who built a textile factory in Owari, she was the sixth of ten brothers. In 1921, she became a student at the private Hongō Painting Institute under Okada Saburōsuke. One year later, she began her studies at the Joshibi University of Art and Design, a private women's art school in Suginami, Japan. She graduated in 1924. During the same year of her graduation, she marriedMigishi Kōtarō, another Japanese western-style painter, who died unexpectedly in 1934. In 1946, she founded the. She is known to have contributed to raise the status of female artists as individuals. In 1954, she traveled to France for the first time, and settled in Burgundy. By 1968, along with her son, Kōtarō, she created masterpieces of landscape paintings around Europe, and painted while fighting against loneliness in a foreign country and the decline of the body due to aging. Well-known for her use of beautiful colors and floral works, her painting style changed through the years, especially after moving her studio to France. Migishi returned to Japan in 1989, at the age of 84, were she continued her work at her home and atelier in Ōiso, Kanagawa Prefecture. In the same year, she was awarded the Asahi prize. In 1994, Migishi received the Person of Cultural Merit, an official Japanese recognition and honor to selected people who have made outstanding cultural contributions. Setsuko keptpainting until her death in 1999 at the age of 94.
Legacy
The is a museum and cultural center located in Ichinomiya, Aichi Prefecture, in Japan, that is dedicated to the works and life of Migishi Setsuko. It was established in 1998 at the birthplace of the Japanese Yōga painter. The museum owns one of the most extensive collections of Setsuko's work, mostly donated by Setsuko and her family themselves. It includes a permanent collection of works, temporary exhibitions and art related lectures, as well as different activities and showings of Setsuko's documentaries. It also contains a library and gift shop dedicated to the artist, along with books and catalogues about Japanese art and culture.
