Textile Society of America
Date of this Version
1998
Document Type
Article
Citation
From Creating Textiles: Makers, Methods, Markets. Proceedings of the Sixth Biennial Symposium of the Textile Society of America, Inc. New York, NY, September 23–26, 1998 (Earleville, MD: Textile Society of America, Inc., 1999).
Abstract
A group of more than a dozen original paintings of "kimono beauties" or bijinga, literally "picture of a beauty," is in the collection of the Ashikaga Museum of Modem Art, Ashikaga, Tochigi Prefecture. They were painted by well-respected master painters between 1920s and 1930s, commissioned by the Ashikaga Meisen Weavers Association to be reproduced in postcards and posters to promote their products, Ashikaga meisen.
Another group of large posters of movie actress "beauties" wearing meisen kimonos is in the collection of Shimojo Koichiro, a former meisen dealer/producer, now a drapery manufacturer in lsesaki, Gunma Prefecture. These posters were published by the Isesaki Weavers Association to promote Isesaki meisen during the period spanning 1926 to 1957 but interrupted by World War II.
Comments
Copyright © 1998 by the author(s)