Gladiolus

Yoshida Fujio (self-published)

1953

Woodblock print, ink and color on paper

Minneapolis Institute of Art

A close-up, stylized depiction of a gladiolus flower with broad, curving petals in shades of yellow and green. The center of the flower reveals delicate stamens and pistils. The print is from a series created by Yoshida Fujio in the early 1950s, featuring close-up views of flowers common to the Japanese islands. Using traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques, her pictures of the delicate, swirling insides of flowers like irises, gladioluses, and wild ginger border on abstraction. Yoshida Fujio was among the first women Japanese painters to work in the Western style. She was also the first female artist in the celebrated Yoshida family of painters, a leading artistic family dating back to the early 1800s. After traveling throughout North America in the early 1900s, preparing numerous sketches a