Goddess against thunder
1947

• MUNAKATA Shikō

Munakata Shikō was the third of fifteen children born to an impoverished family in northern Japan. As a child, Munakata was known to paint directly onto the road with ink and an old brush. In the 1920s he went to Tokyo and discovered woodblock prints and their energetic mark-making possibilities, which suited his expressive temperament. Munakata was famous for making no preparatory drawings, directly painting, cutting and printing the block with great vigour and then often brushing watercolours onto the reverse side of the paper. This new style of raw and expressive imagery established him as one of the most well recognised and respected Japanese artists of the twentieth century. He was awarded the Order of Culture, the highest honour in the arts, by the Japanese government in 1970.