Sumi-e

Sue Sumi Tabuchi

Sue Sumi Tabuchi is a sumi-e artist whose work was featured in the 1978 Japanese Canadian Centennial exhibition. She began to learn sumi-e techniques from her father at the age of two, and later went on to develop a watercolour style based on traditional sumi-e techniques. She usually depicts subjects from nature, such as flowers […]

Minako Takahashi

Minako Takahashi is a visual and mixed media artist. She was born in Tokyo and moved to Takefu, Fukui-ken at the age of two. While a student at Takefu high school, her art work was chosen for inclusion in such exhibitions as the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper national student art exhibition and the modern art exhibition […]

Kaneko Johkoh

Kaneko Johkoh is a painter. Born in Ehime prefecture, Japan, she started oil painting in 1961, and became active in artists’ associations in Japan. In 1983, she started doing bokusho abstract sumi-e (ink brush) drawings, a style which she exhibited in Japan, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Mexico, and eventually brought with her to Canada. She […]

Yoshimaru Abe

Yoshimaru Abe was an entertainer, artist, haiku poet, garden designer. Born in 1914 in Fukuoka, Japan, Abe immigrated to Canada in 1927 to join his parents in Port Hammond, BC. There he worked for the local lumber mill while also working on the family strawberry farm. With other Japanese community members, he engaged in shibai […]

Noriko Imai

Noriko Imai is a painter who was born in Tokyo and raised in Yokohama. She is a member of La Société canadienne de l’aquarelle (THE CANADIAN WATERCOLOR SOCIETY). From a young age, Imai was inspired to paint from the influence of her father and older sisters. After graduating from high school, Imai worked for her […]

Tomoko Kodama

Tomoko Kodama was a sumi-e painter born in Tokyo. She first discovered her love of art in high school, and went on to study nihonga painting in university. She received a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1957. Kodama immigrated to Canada with her husband, Hideomi Kodama, in 1962. They were planning on staying only […]

Hiroshi Yamamoto

Hiroshi Yamamoto is a nihonga and sumi-e painter. His artist name is ‘Hakuho.’ Yamamoto was born in Shiga prefecture in Japan. He graduated from the Kyoto Industrial Design Institute and the Kyoto Japanese Art School, where he studied Japanese Traditional Art – Nihonga, Sumi-e and Art History. He was awarded the Ruth Yamada Award in […]

Mitsugi Kikuchi

Mitsugi Shinran Kikuchi is a painter who works in traditional Japanese styles of sumi-e (ink brush painting) and tarashikomi (‘drop-in’ method of watercolour painting), and a retired ikebana sensei in the Ohara school. He learned sumi-e and tarashikomi after graduating high school in Japan, and also became an ikebana teacher before immigrating to Canada in […]

Ruth Yamada

Ruth Yamada was a sumi-e artist and watercolour painter, and founder of the Toronto-based group Sumi-e Artists of Canada. Professionally, Yamada worked as the lead fashion artist for Fairweather Clothing. Her sumi-e and watercolours were exhibited at a number of solo exhibitions in Ontario, and part of group exhibitions internationally, including in Japan. Yamada was […]

Teruo Adachi

Teruo (Terry) Adachi was born in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia. Life took him to Tottori-ken, Japan (ages 6 to 10), Vancouver, B.C. (his teen years), Jackfish and Valetta, Ontario work/farm camps during the war and, finally, Toronto in 1942. He studied painting and drawing in Toronto at Central Tech and the Ontario College of Art […]