Yoshida Hodaka, the youngest son of Yoshida Hiroshi and Fujio, was born on September 3. 1926, 15 years after his older brother Toshi. Like Toshi, he would become an important artist, as would his future wife and daughter. Hodaka was named after a favorite mountain - Hodakayama. He grew up in his father’s house in Tokyo. In school he had a love for science and that gained him entry into Dai-ichi Higher School (now a part of Tokyo University) in 1944.

The final years of the war made educational activities impossible. Hodaka had always suffered asthma attacks and a recurrence at this time caused him to move from the school dormitory back to the family home. Here he took an interest in poetry and oil painting, neither of which much satisfied his father. Hodaka liked abstract art, which Hiroshi was not interested in, so as a resistance to his father, he continued in that vein, leading to a first exhibition of his works in 1951 in a two-person show with Inoue Chizuko, who would later become his wife in 1953

A curious fact is that after Hiroshi’s death in 1950, Hodaka would convince both his mother Fujio, and his brother Toshi, to try abstract style art. In 1953 Hodaka built his own house in a garden area behind the parental house. He and Chizuko would live there until 1967. Both of their children, Ayomi (1958) and Takasuke (1959) would be born in this time period, a period when both parents would be engaged in an extensive burst of block carving and print making. In 1967 the family moved to another house in Mitaka-shi, a Tokyo suburb. Fujio moved in with them. There in one studio the three artists - Hodaka, Chizuko and Ayomi - worked on their own separate styles.

Hodaka’s work in prints went through several stylistic periods. His abstract preferences are found in all the early works - in woodblock, watercolor and oil. In 1954 his theme became centered on Buddhist prints, again, abstracted. A longer period began in 1955 which lasted until 1963. His first visit outside Japan acquainted him with other cultures and the primitive aspects of other cultures flowed into his works during this period - Mayan influences from Mexico as an example.

The next cycle ran from 1963 to 1974 where he adopted what he termed modern myths and landscapes. A number of series of prints would come out of this including the Landscape-Zodiac series of 1973. It is during this period that the medium of photo-etching shows up in some of his work. Chizuko had mastered this medium also, combining it with wood block.

The final period of 1974 - 1985 included visits abroad to Mexico, the United States and Europe. While his version of mythological themes would continue to influence the work, he made use of a full spectrum of media - woodblock, photo-etching, photo-silkscreen, photo etching and woodblock.

His final period lasted until his death in 1995. In one series of this period he concentrated on images of walls, abstract, and based on photographs. There is no use of collage in these later prints - the photographic image is dominant with subtle adjustments for texture and color. He died on November 2, 1995, only four months after his older brother Toshi. Daughter Ayomi continues to produce art as does Toshi’s youngest son Tsukasa.

References:

Yoshida Hodaka: The magic of Art by Eugene M. Skibbe, Seascape Publications, 1997.

A Japanese Legacy: Four Generations of Yoshida Family Artists, Minneapolis Institute of Art, 2002.