Lot 307: Kobayashi Kokei (1883-1957)

Hanging scroll, ink on silk; depicting four small, globular nasu in skillfully modulated ink monochrome; signed Kokei with seal.
10 1/2 x 13 7/8in (26.7 x 35.3cm)

Kobayashi Kokei was born in Niigata, and began his training in traditional Japanese painting with Kajita Hanko (1870-1917). He began showing his work with the Bunten in 1912, and was active after 1914 with the Saiko Nihon Bijutsuin. Best known in the west as a painter of beauties, Kokei was in the 1920's an ardent student of classical Chinese painting, and for a short period, from 1922-1923, he traveled and studied in Europe. He is considered, with Yokoyama Taikan (1868-1958) and Shimomura Kanzan (1862-1913), one of the second generation of artists influenced by the critic and philosopher Okakura Tenshin (1862-1913). Kokei was himself an influential teacher, from 1944-1951, at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts (present-day Tokyo University of Arts and Music), which Tenshin helped found.