Maho Tsuda
Born in Tokyo in 1966. Graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts. Involved in Children’s painting and modeling classes. Her works used for a book design and illustration include De la mare monogatari shu (3 volumes), and picture books such as Ootoko No Hanashi, Uzumaki-Uzumaki-Katatsumuri, Akachan Ga Iruno! (Dainippon tosho Co.,Ltd.), Watashi No Akachan (Fukuinkan Shoten Publishers, Inc.), and Aki Desu (Kinnohoshi Co.Ltd.). She has had many solo exhibitions at Gallery Hinoki (Tokyo), and has held solo exhibitions at Niigata Eya in 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2005. Lives and works in Tokyo.
War is now closer than ever, even here in this seemingly peaceful world.
It is at this juncture that I encountered Sutemi Kubo’s new work, “Hito ga yuku”(Our Path), a series of paintings depicting individuals, groups, and collectives. As I looked at it, I was naturally reminded of “Quo Vadis” (Where to), painted by Kyoto artist Noboru Kitawaki four years after the war’s end (in 1949, one year after Kubo’s birth). A man with a book in his arms and a sack over his shoulder stands in the corner of an empty field, unable to take a step forward. In the distance, the rain was pouring down and crowds were marching. Have the times when groups killed each other and individuals were suppressed vanished, or have they simply disappeared from sight. I feel that the life of Kubo, who supported the Association of Shiminhei Fighting Pollution in Yokkaichi, began to create pictures and woodblock prints on his own, and continued to question being an individual, was what the man in the picture in Kitawaki walked after.
From the series of works by Kubo, who passed away in October, we can picture a scene of one person, still unseen, taking another first step forward. (Exhibition Planner: Hiroshi Okura)
Sutemi Kubo
Born in Tsu City, Mie Prefecture in 1948, studied at the Kan-eiji Art Institute in Tokyo in 1966, and began self-taught woodblock printmaking in 1975. He has exhibited mainly in Mie, but also in Aichi, Tokyo, Niigata, and other cities. An exhibition was held at the Kunstmuseum Buchheim in Germany in 2018, and a Kubo Sutemi Woodblock Print Exhibition: Our Path was held at the Maruki Gallery for the Hiroshima Panels from May to June 2023. Publications include Kubo Sutemi Prints 1977-2012 (German with English and Japanese translations), Hoshihito: The Trajectory of an Individual – Kubo Sutemi Woodblock Prints (Kotomizu Seisakushitsu). He passed away on October 4, 2023.
