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About Kazuko Tokunaga

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Exhibit in New York, 2006

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Noh dance performance, 1975

Bio

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Tokunaga with teacher, Yuki Ogura, 1984

Kazuko Tokunaga is a nihonga painter (traditional Japanese painting style with hand mixed mineral pigments), based in Tokyo, whose work has been featured in art galleries throughout Japan and internationally.

Tokunaga spent many decades apprenticing and training through traditional nihonga lineages. She apprenticed for 20 years with Keimei Anzai (disciple of Ryuko Kawabata). Then, Tokunaga apprenticed for 10 years with Yuki Ogura (disciple of Yasuda Yukihiko), the renowned painter awarded the national Order of Cultural Merit (Bunka-Kunsho).

She mounts and frames all of her work herself and has passed on this traditional lineage of painting to her many students.

Tokunaga's work includes her celebrated collection of maiko portraits (geisha apprentices), and nature inspired themes in her nihonga style paintings and hanging scrolls.

She has also been writing haikus for much of her life, often pairing them with her paintings.

Tokunaga also spent years working in kimono design at the Seibu department store. She also had the role of head kimono design on the set of 1962 film, My Geisha, starring Shirley Maclaine.

Tokunaga has also dedicated much of her life to studying music, as an avid singer, participating in chorus and opera ensembles, learning the shamisen, and training in and performing Noh dance.

Training & Education

1952 - 1957

1960 - 1980

1980 - 1990

Seijo Gakuen

Nihonga Apprenticeship with Keimei Anzai

Nihonga Apprenticeship with Yuki Ogura

Exhibitions Highlights

Solo

2017

Group

2006

Artexpo New York

2017

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2035

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2035

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