Uemura Shoen Japanese Woodblock Print -Whispering Beauties

Description

Japanese Print -Whispering Beauties by Uemura Shoen
Condition:
Vintage
Description:
Japanese Print -Whispering Beauties by Uemura Shoen
Dimensions (approx.): ~
10 3/4" tall x 9 1/2" wide
Signature and seal,
松園　- Shōen
Uemura Shōen 上村松園　1875-1949
She was the first nationally and internationally known Japanese paintresses.
Script on the back,
昭和廿十七年五月吉日　-　 On an Auspicious Day of May in the 27th Year of Showa Era (1952)
日本橋税務署華道部　-　Nihonbashi Tax Office Flower Arrangement Club
Uemura Shōen
, 1875–1949, was a Japanese style painter from the Meiji period to the Taishō and Shōwa periods.  Uemura Shōen was the pseudonym of an important artist in Meiji, Taishō and early Shōwa period Japanese painting. Her real name was Uemura Tsune. Shōen was known primarily for her bijin-ga paintings. Bijin-ga is a generic term for pictures of beautiful women in Japanese art, especially in woodblock printing of the ukiyo-e genre, which predate photography. Ukiyo-e is a genre of woodblock prints and paintings that was produced in Japan from the 17th century to the 19th century. But her portraits go beyond this traditional pattern. Shōen’s paintings and prints show a modern instead of an idealized picture of women.
Many of the works of Uemura Shoen show portraits of women, sometimes with children in a realistic, refined style. Uemura is often called a bijin-ga painter, a painter of the traditional Japanese subject of so-called beautiful women. In 1941 Shoen Uemura became a member of the Imperial Art Academy. And in 1948 she became the first woman to receive the Order of Cultural Merit.