Sakurai Hamae
Year unknown
Oil on canvas
Sakurai Hamae
1908-2007
Born in Yamagata City, Yamagata Prefecture. Sakurai was interested in painting since her all-girls’ school days. She moved to Tokyo and studied under Okada Saburōsuke and Satomi Katsuzō in 1926. She was selected to exhibit at the first Association of Independent Artists’ Exhibition. She was a pioneer amongst female Western-style painters, founding the Joryū Painter’s Association with Migishi Setsuko and others. She expressed a sense of lifelike reality which overflowed from the surface of her paintings with her characteristic bold forms and powerful compositions created by intense brushwork.