平櫛田中

Born in 1872 in present-day Ibara city, Okayama prefecture. The commonly understood story is that he was born into the Tanaka family and then adopted by the Hirakushi family, but the official family register shows that he was born into the Katayama family, then registered in the Tanaka family, followed by the Hirakushi family. His real name is said to have been Hirakushi Takutarō, and his artist name, Hirakushi Denchū combines the two family names, with Denchū an alternate reading of the Tanaka family name. After graduating from elementary school he was unable to continue schooling due to the Tanaka family’s financial difficulties. He moved to Osaka in 1886 for work, and with the hope of becoming an artist, in 1893 he entered the studio of the dollmaker Nakatani Seiko and learned sculpting. In 1894 chest pains meant that he returned home. However the following year he was completely cured of the problem and set out again for Osaka. Seiko supported his desire to become a proper sculptor and he spent close to two years in Nara studying ancient Buddhist sculpture. In 1897 he moved to Tokyo, found lodgings close to Kanda Myōjin, and the following year moved to Chōanji in Yanaka, Shitaya-ku, present-day Taitō-ku. That year he entered the studio of the Buddhist sculptor Takamura Kōun. Given his advanced age he was not taken on as a live-in disciple and he treated his fellow disciples Yonehara Unkai and Yamazaki Chōun like younger brothers as he honed his sculpting skills. In 1898 he entered an Eleven-Headed Kannon sculpture in the Nihon Bijutsu Kyōkai (Japan Art Association) spring exhibition under the name Hirakushi Denchū平櫛田仲. He continued to use that name until 1914. Also in 1898, he began a three-year period of listening to the orations of Nishiyama Kasan of Daihōji, Iyo-Yawatahama at Rinshōin, Yushima, Bunkyō-ku, a process that influenced both his thinking and sculpture. In 1899 he entered “Woodcutter” (private collection), an image of a woodcutter sitting resting on firewood, all cut from a single piece of wood, in the autumn exhibition of the Nihon Bijutsu Kyōkai. That work was also entered in the Glasgow International Exhibition of 1901. He entered “Shōka-kimigayo” (Kodaira Hirakushi Denchu Art Museum, Tokyo) in the Nihon Bijutsu Kyōkai’s spring 1901 exhibition where it was awarded a Silver Prize 銀牌. That work was his first use of the pointing method, whereby a compass aids the transfer of an image from the model to the final work material. He then regularly used this method in his sculpture production. In 1902 he became a member of the Sansankai 三々会 (later the Sanshikai 三四会), an organization formed by Shinkai Taketarō and others in order to research modeling technique, and displayed “Labor” 労働, ”Haikara” 高襟 and “Obese” 肥満 by 1904. That group had a lottery system to choose artists each month to make works on a set subject and have it critiqued by the group members, with the critiquing process characterized by its emphasis on the expression of human emotions. In 1907 he entered “Nai Nai” 無矣無矣 (Oita Prefectural Art Museum) in Tokyo Kangyō Hakurankai (Tokyo Industrial Exhibition) where it was awarded Third Prize 三等賞. He refused the prize based on what he considered to be unfair judging. He entered his image of a young girl nonchalantly cradling a baby “Sisterliness” (plaster model, Ibara City Hirakushi Denchu Art Museum) in the 1907 First Ministry of Education Fine Arts Exhibition (Bunten). During this period he created other realistic sculptures faithfully rendering the features of ordinary children, such as “Infant with Papier-mâché Dog” 幼児狗張子 (1911, Ibara City Hirakushi Denchu Art Museum). That same year he became a founding member of the Nihon Chōkokukai (Japan Society of Sculpture) organized at the behest of Okakura Tenshin. He entered “Katsujinsen” (private collection), depicting a moment of Zen enlightenment, in the group’s first exhibition held the following year. Tenshin advised, do not present an explanatory depiction of the drawn bow, express it simply through the power of the sculpture itself. In 1910 he displayed “Hattō Nishō,” likening Kasan and others to the Rinzai sect founding patriarch Linji and the priest Magu. That same year he exhibited "Fencing" 剣客 in the Japan-British Exhibition where it was awarded a Silver Prize 銀賞. In 1913 he entered “Jingyū” 尋牛 (Searching for the Ox) (Kodaira Hirakushi Denchu Art Museum, Tokyo) in Japan Society of Sculpture's fifth exhibition. During this period he took up Buddhist and Asian history themes, and with helpful advice from Tenshin, strove to create an artistic realm in which the images he held in his heart worked in tandem with that which he actually expressed. In 1914, the year after Tenshin’s death, he participated in the revitalization of the Nihon Bijutsuin (Japan Art Institute). He entered “Kasan Laughing” 禾山笑 (Tokyo University of the Arts), depicting Nishiyama Kasan sitting on a Buddhist priest's ceremonial use chair and roaring with laughter, in the First Re-organized Inten exhibition (Japan Art Institute Exhibition). Halfway through the exhibition, “Kasan Laughing” was highly praised and Denchū was nominated a “donin” (top-ranking Nihon Bijutsuin exhibitor). That year he changed the second character of his art name to Denchū平櫛田中. Starting that year, and for the next two years, he worked hard with Nakahara Teijirō and Ishii Tsuruzō on modeling research in the sculpture research department of the Nihon Bijutsuin’s art research center. His “Sitting Nude Female (Far in Thought)” (Tokyo University of the Arts) exhibited in the 1916 Third Re-organized Inten exhibition was created through the faithful transfer of image from mold to wood. It was his attempt to overcome the differences between Western modeled sculpture and Japanese wood sculpture. In 1919, he built a studio in Sakuragi 44 banchi, Shitaya-ku with the assistance of Kimura Buzan, Yokoyama Taikan, and others. Two works created in this studio — “Uyū Sensei (Mr. Uyū)” (1919, Tokyo National Museum) and “Tenshō (Reincarnation)” (Tokyo University of the Arts) — are fully realized figural expressions based on his study of modeling and rich in firm composition and a sense of internal mass. However, modeling was not simply a sculpture technique for Denchū, he also equated it with a Western philosophy and thought-based global awareness. This attitude can be linked to his assertion as a Teiten (Imperial Fine Arts Academy Exhibition) member of the need for two sculpture divisions, wood sculpture and modeling, when the Minister of Education Matsuda Genji instituted the so-called Teiten Matsuda reorganization in 1935. Denchū was often involved in work for temples and shrines. His “Statue of Mito Mitsukuni” (1955) was erected in Minatogawa Shrine, Kobe city, and he created various Buddhist and Shinto figures for Hōryūji, Chūgūji, Akō Ōishi Shrine and Yamanakahachiman Shrine in Ibara city. In 1931 his “Minamoto no Yoritomo” was dedicated to Shirahata Shrine, Tsurugaoka Hachimangū, Kamakura, the first of his works that have polychrome decoration. Later he would occasionally apply colors to his own works. The early Shōwa period was a time when he created numerous portrait sculptures in addition to the Shirahata Shrine work. Among these works were such masterpieces as his “Yahan Ō (Old Man at Night)” (1933, Tokyo University of the Arts) created in reference to historical figures in paintings and sculptures, his Haraō Kanjitsu” (1940, Suzaka City Museum), a realistic work sketched from a living model, and “Lifetime Statue of Asano Nagakoto” (1949, Tokyo University of the Arts), which is a mixture of those two methods. In 1936 he created “Kagamijishi,” a work based on the kabuki play “Shunkyō Kagamijishi” and modeled after the performance of Onoe Kikugorō VI in the role. He entered “Study for Kagamijishi” 鏡獅子試作裸像 (Tokyo University of the Arts) and “Study for Kagamijishi Head” (Kodaira Hirakushi Denchu Art Museum, Tokyo) in the 1938 Twenty-fifth Reorganized Inten exhibition, followed in 1939 with his entry of the “Study for Kagamijishi” in the Twenty-sixth Reorganized Inten exhibition. In 1939 he built a new studio (known as the Ohana Jaya Studio) at Hondenhōkizukachō 429, Katsushika-ku, Tokyo. There he worked on an over two-meter tall “Kagamijishi” sculpture based on these studies. However, he ran into difficulties at the enlargement stage, and then work stopped during the war. Denchū was appointed an Imperial Court Artist in 1944, and he became a professor in the woodcarving section of the Sculpture Department at Tokyo Bijutsu Gakkō (Tokyo Fine Arts School, present-day Tokyo University of the Arts). At first Denchū was in charge of wood sculpture and Ishii Tsuruzō taught clay modeling. However, a movement to reject Professor Ishii arose in 1947, and a two-classroom system was established where both wood sculpture and clay modeling were taught in each classroom. During his tenure, which lasted until 1952, Denchū emphasized the importance of viewing and appreciating works. He donated numerous sculptures, including his own works, to the school to provide research materials for the students. He continued to donate works even after the end of his tenure there. In 1966, the 147 works he donated were installed in the Hirakushi Denchu Memorial Room (present-day Sculpture Exhibition Room, The University Art Museum, Tokyo University of the Arts). After retiring from the school in 1952, he restarted work on “Kagamijishi” (National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo), and upon its completion entered it in the Forty-third Reorganized Inten exhibition in 1958. He made other approximately two-meter tall works at the same Ohana Jaya Studio where he created “Kagamijishi,” including “Yokozuna Tsunenohana” (1956, Sumo Museum), “Strolling Seizan (Mito Mitsukuni)” (1957, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo), and “The Angler at Izura” (1962, Izura Institute of Art & Culture, Ibaraki University). Three years after he completed “Kagamijishi,” in 1961 the Sculpture Division of the Nihon Bijutsuin was disbanded, but Denchū remained as chairman. In 1968 his house in Kodaira city, Tokyo designed by architect Ōe Hiroshi was completed and he moved into the house in 1970. He named the house “Kyūjūhachi Sōin,” referring to his “kyūjūhachi” age of 98 in the Japanese “kazoedoshi” age system, when the house was completed. He completed “Isuzu Rōbo” (private collection), modeled after the shop mistress of Akafuku in Ise, in the studio at this new house. Denchū was also a talented calligrapher, and in his final years he created numerous fascinating calligraphy works, including “Rokujū, Shichijū wa hanatare kozou Otokozakari wa hyaku kara hyaku kara” [60s, 70s are old-nosed brats, men are from 100, from 100], and “Ima yaraneba itsu dekiru, washi ga yaraneba dare ga yaru.” [If I don't try now when can I, if I don't try, who will] On December 30, 1979, Denchū died in his Kodaira home. He was 107 years old. He had been named a Person of Cultural Merit in 1954, and in 1962 was awarded the Order of Culture. In 1969 the Ibara City Hirakushi Denchū Art Museum was opened in his hometown, followed in 1984 by the opening of the Kodaira Hirakushi Denchu Art Museum, Tokyo. Both continue their activities to honor his achievements. (Fujii Akira / Translated by Martha J. McClintock) (Published online: 2024-03-13) *All works listed in this text with collection names are the completed versions of those works.