Rui Yoshida

Rui Yoshida (1864–1954) was a daughter born to a family of Japanese artists five generations ago. Through those five generations, the Yoshida artists evolved from using a traditional Japanese style to producing modern Western-style art, and finally to post-modernism. Although not an artist herself, Rui was the key figure who nurtured and shaped those who did become artists.

When Rui was born in the mid-19th century, the Yoshida family was making traditional paintings for the Nakatsu warrior clan in what is now Ōita Prefecture on the island of Kyūshū. However, no males were born into the family to carry on the Yoshida name and work. As was often done in Japan at the time, a family without a male heir would adopt a male from another family. Rui’s parents selected a young man, Kasaburō Haruno (1861–1894), whose father was also a painter for the Nakatsu clan, to be their adopted son and to marry Rui. Kasaburō had been trained by early Western-style artists in Kyoto in their use of sketch, watercolors, and oils. Later he became the art teacher at Shūyūkan Junior High School in Fukuoka. There he became a pioneer in the Western-style by starting an art club and by writing two manuals on learning to paint with Western-style oils. (Allen et al., 19-20)

Because Kasaburō's health was declining and because Rui had as yet not borne a son, they decided to adopt a male from another family, just as Rui’s parents had done. Kasaburō’s most promising art student was Hiroshi Ueda (1876–1950). In 1891 they adopted him. Hiroshi Yoshida was immediately sent to study with leading Western-style artists in Kyoto. Kasaburō died at the age of 33, just three years after Hiroshi was adopted. That meant that the 18-year-old Hiroshi, with Rui his adoptive mother, became the head of the Yoshida family with its five children. (Allen, et al., 20)

In the same year that Kasaburō died, Hiroshi and Rui took the family to Tokyo where he could study with even more important artists. During those difficult times, Rui, who had been instrumental with her husband in choosing Hiroshi, now assisted and guided him. For example, she ground pigments by hand, mixed them with oil, and put them into tubes for Hiroshi to use in painting. (Skibbe, 36-7) At that time, as well as later, Rui was the strength and continuity behind the emerging artists.

In 1907 Hiroshi married his own adoptive sister Fujio Yoshida (1887–1987), the sister who had shown the most talent in art. (For a photo of the Yoshida family at time of the wedding, see Yasunaga, 172) He had actually tutored her in art before they married, and that continued. Much of what Fujio did at this young age reflected Hiroshi’s style. But as time went on, the talent Hiroshi had initially seen in Fujio's work began to reveal her independent insight and aesthetic. A large exhibit of Fujio’s work in 2002 at the Fuchu Museum near Tokyo showed that. (Yamamura) That was one reason why joint exhibits of Fujio’s and Hiroshi’s watercolors in the United States in the early 20th century were so popular with the American art public and resulted so many sales. (Skibbe, in Andon, 40)

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