Matsuda Shōhei
Year unknown
Pastels
From Mr. I’s Collection
Matsuda Shōhei
1913-2004
Born in Shimane Prefecture. He spent his childhood in Ube, Yamaguchi, and studied under Fujishima Takeji at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts before moving to Paris to study in 1938. The following year, he returned to Japan due to the start of the Second World War. Moving around the prefectures of Kanagawa, Yamaguchi, Tokyo, and Chiba, he continued to create works, but only really became known in his later years. He took-up oil painting with earnest. His expressive style transformed from thick, heavy layers of paint through the years before and after the war, to a more transparent and simplified from the 1980s onwards.
He came to be appreciated by art critics including Tōru Sunouchi and was the recipient of the 16th Nihon Geijutsu Taishō award in 1984.