Portrait of Ms. Solita Solano

Yasushi Tanaka emigrated to the United States at the age of eighteen because, following the collapse of his family's business, he needed to determine hi s life's path on his own. He started painting by self- study. Around 1912, he began exhibiting his paintings near his residence in Seattle, and gradually his talent was noticed and appreciated. In 1920, Tanaka, who was ensured fame as a painter in Seattle, moved to Paris in order to improve himself as a painter. In the same year, Tanaka offered his paintings to a public exhibition sponsored by an art association. He continued to offer his paintings to various salons as often as he could. Tanaka came to be regarded as highly as Tsuguharu Fujita, but he never returned to Japan after he initially emigrated to the United States. And because he rarely associated with Japanese painters, he had no chance to be introduced in Japan until recent years. He was almost forgotten after his death.
Solita Solano was an American author. In Paris, Tanaka was good friends with American and British authors such as Ezra Pound and James Joyce. Solano probably had chance to meet Tanaka through these authors. This painting, which expresses Tanaka's style of flat bodies depicting lightness, was presented to the Salon Nationale in 1927.
(Source: Selected Works from the Collection of Nagoya City Art Museum, 1998, P. 41.)