The Life and Art of Chigusa Kitani
Chigusa Kitani was a Japanese Nihonga painter and painting teacher active during the Taishō and Shōwa periods. Born in Osaka as Ei Yoshioka, she began her artistic journey studying bird-and-flower painting under Chokujō Fukada of the Shijō school. Her education expanded through various masters, including Shōen Ikeda in Tokyo, and later Tsunetomi Kitano and Kyuho Noda in Osaka. She also studied under Keigetsu Kikuchi in Kyoto starting in 1919. Notably, her training included two years in Seattle, Washington, as a teenager.
In 1920, she married Hōgin Kitani and established two painting schools at her home in Osaka: the Yachigusa-kai and the Chigusa-kai, with the goal of instructing and improving the status of female painters. Her work was featured in several exhibitions, such as the Imperial Fine Arts Academy Exhibition (Teiten) and the Yachigusakai's Exhibition. Some of her notable works include:
- Shin-kyo (New house), selected for the first Osaka Fine Arts Exhibition in 1915.
- Hari-Kuyō (Memorial ceremony Festival of Broken Needles), a work depicting a Geisha girl in Kyoto, shown at the 9th Ministry of Education Art Fine Arts Exhibition.
