Popular Protest in Post War Japan: The Antiwar Art of Shikoku GorōMain MenuOverviewThis exhibit explores the vibrant grassroots artistic culture of Hiroshima, known as the atomic bombed city. From 1949 through the 1990s, local artist Shikoku Gorō advanced a bold and democratic vision for cultural life by bringing poetry to the streets & mobilizing visual arts to represent the vitality, beauty, and complexity of Hiroshima. The exhibit explores a set of influential books, along with other examples of socially committed art. Shikoku and his circles of collaborators illuminated pathways to civic engagement for the citizens of Hiroshima—hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors), vets, & younger generations.Atom Bomb Poetry CollectionThe Angry JizoHiroshima SketchesGlossaryResourcesAcknowledgmentsAnn Sherif99c9850c7ffbc663daa16feec7b9f1dd71ca3e2e
Sketches Ruins and Rebuilding
1media/sketches_ruins_thumb.jpg2020-06-10T21:35:27+00:00Max Mitchell5fec7a6574d32fe574c01ba927cd57c749ceca6992Ruins with Toge Sankichi poem (R) and Scene of Rebuilding of Woman’s Hospital, Watercolor on paper, early 1950s. (Hiroshima Sketches, pp. 62-63)plain2020-06-14T22:14:53+00:00Hirogaku ToshophotographMax Mitchell5fec7a6574d32fe574c01ba927cd57c749ceca69
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12020-05-26T15:13:29+00:00Exhibiting Paintings4plain2020-06-14T16:08:21+00:00Though not part of the art establishment, Shikoku situated his expressive work in relation to canonical art and respected local poets and painters. From the Our Poems days in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Shikoku was active in building networks with artists, organizing non-juried exhibits, publishing with like-minded writers in journals. On the right page above the monochrome painting of ruins, he quotes a poem by much admired Toge Sankichi about the violence of the bomb. The facing page shows the rebuilding of a hospital; Shikoku notes his use of yellow to suggest wheat and dots of red to highlight human activity in this more hopeful image.
