Shima Seien

Shima Seien was a nihonga artist in Taishō and Shōwa Japan.

Life

Born Shima Seiei in Sakai in 1892, around the age of 13 she moved with her family to Shimanouchi in Osaka. She taught herself how to paint while assisting her brother with his work in design, going on to study with Kitano Tsunetomi and Noda Kyūho. Married in 1921, she moved to Manchuria in 1927, returning to Japan at the end of the war.

Works

Shima Seien was awarded certificates of commendation for Evening in Soemon-chō at the sixth Bunten exhibition in 1912, Festival Attire at the seventh Bunten, and Artlessness at the ninth Bunten. Her 1918 self-portrait Untitled features a facial bruise which she wrote symbolizes the many abuses routinely inflicted upon women by men and the backdrop of an unfinished painting. It is one of three of her works designated as Municipal Cultural Properties of Osaka. This work and two others by the artist, Blackened Teeth and Woman were shown in Tokyo in 2021 as part of an exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo titled “Ayashii: Decadent and Grotesque Images of Beauty in Modern Japanese Art.”