Destination

SHINODA Tōkō was born in Dalian, China in 1913. From the age of five she learned the basics of writing with a brush from her scholar father, but thereafter, her mastery of calligraphy was self-acquired. After the end of World War II, Shinoda began to create abstract works based on the anatomy of Japanese characters. In 1956, she traveled to the United States and took up residence in New York, holding solo exhibits in Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Paris, and elsewhere. After returning to Japan in 1958, she undertook works ranging over various genres: wall paintings, mural calligraphy, reliefs for buildings, the fusuma panels for the Zōjō-ji Temple main hall in Shiba, Tokyo, book design, title lettering, and essay writing. The powerful and intense style of her works of the 1950s gradually acquired grace and lyricism, and from the 1980s to the 1990s, her composition of line and space grew increasingly refined. This particular artwork was created in 1977 for the Japanese Ambassador’s Residence in Washington, D.C., which was also completed in the same year.