With the Hiroshima Panels on My Back

In his early twenties, Yoshida Yoshie (1929–2016) frequented the studio of artists Maruki Iri and Akamatsu Toshiko (Maruki Toshi) in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture. There, he witnessed them working together on the Hiroshima Panels. Yoshida posed as a model for their sketches and traveled with the Hiroshima Panels on the artists’ behalf to run exhibitions across the country. After becoming an art critic and writing on a wide range of subjects including butoh and avant-garde art, he later revisited the Hiroshima Panels in this essay.
The first chapter of this article originated in the August 1964 issue of Bijutsu techō for a feature titled “Densetsu sengo bijutsu no 12” [Twelve legends of postwar art]. The second and third chapters were his contribution to the first two installments of his serialized essays in Bijutsu techō, “Sengo zen’ei shoen no aragoto jūhachiban” [Eighteen rough-style plays of the postwar avant-garde], which started in January 1971. The second and third chapters were published in the book version of the serialized essays, Sengo zen’ei shoen aragoto jūhachiban (Nitoria Shobō, 1972) as well as its expanded edition titled Kaitaigeki no maku orite: 60 nendai zen’ei bijutsushi [The curtain falls on the drama of: 1960s avant-garde art history] (Zōkeisha, 1982). The first chapter was later added to make a three-chapter essay published in Maruki Iri, Toshi no jikū: kaiga toshite no genbaku no zu [Space-time of Maruki Iri and Toshi: the Hiroshima Panels as paintings] (Aoki Shoten, 1996) and Yoshida Yoshie zen shigoto [Complete works of Yoshida Yoshie] (Geijutsu Shoin, 2005).
While acknowledging the dire impossibility of depicting the atomic bombing in painting, Yoshida offers a vivid portrait of the charged intersection between political movements and art that opened a singular horizon of imagination in Japan under US occupation. This essay served as a critical juncture in advancing an aesthetic reassessment of the Hiroshima Panels, which had traveled across the world and been discussed primarily in the context of anti-war peace movements during the Cold War.

Title

With the Hiroshima Panels on My Back

Author

Yoshida Yoshie

First published

1971

Translation

Mabuchi Kanako

Editing

Okamura Yukinori, Mike Fu

Design

Ian Lynam

Theme

Critic

First Posted Online

2024-07-09

Last modified

2024-07-09

© 2023 Yoshida Kakuya + National Center for Art Research, Japan

The newly published English translations on this website (https://artplatform.go.jp) can be used without permission only for the purposes of education, research, critique, survey, and the like. English translations cannot be copied for the purpose of sale or distribution. You must comply with the Rules Governing the Use of the English Translations.

Citation

Footnote/endnote: Yoshida Yoshie, "With the Hiroshima Panels on My Back," trans. Mabuchi Kanako, National Center for Art Research, Japan, posted July 9, 2024, artplatform.go.jp/resources/readings/R202306.

Bibliography: Yoshida Yoshie. "With The Hiroshima Panels on My Back." Translated by Mabuchi Kanako. National Center for Art Research, Japan. Posted July 9, 2024. artplatform.go.jp/resources/readings/R202306.

Original Japanese Edition

Yoshida Yoshie, "‘Genbaku no Zu' o seotte," Yoshida Yoshie zen shigoto: The corpus of Yoshida Yoshie’s critical essays on art (Tokyo: Geijutsu Shoin, 2005): 229–251.

ヨシダヨシエ「『原爆の図』を背負って」『ヨシダ・ヨシエ全仕事』 芸術書院、2005年、229–251頁。

National Diet Library(NDL)

First printed: https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-I000008052262

ISBN