Mashimo Keiji
Exhibited at the 22nd Issuikai, 1960
Donated by the artist
Mashimo Keiji (1914–1993) was born in Tsuya, Tozawa Village, in the Mogami district of Yamagata Prefecture. He entered the art department of the now-closed Bunka Gakuin, Japan’s first co-educational school, and studied under painters such as Ishii Hakutei and Ikuma Arishima. He exhibited his works numerous times at the prestigious Nika Exhibition and Issuikai Exhibition, before returning to his hometown in 1936.
For the rest of his 60 year-long career, he worked from studios he built in Oyodo in Murayama City and Matsuyama in the Akumi district (present-day Sakata City), focusing almost exclusively on paintings of the Mogami River, for which he received many awards. He became one of the prefecture’s leading Western-style painters, and served as a committee member of the Issuikai, a trustee of the Nitten Japan Fine Arts Exhibition, and a professor at Yamagata University.