Shiko Munakata has long been recognized as a master of the woodcut in modern Japan. His vigorous style of expression liberated the woodblock print from its traditional style and format. The Saint Louis Art Museum has been the recipient of a number of works by Munakata, who visited and worked in St. Louis in 1965 and 1974. The new exhibition Shiko Munakata includes a selection of his woodblock prints and ink drawings from the 1950s to the 1970s that reveal many of his thematic interests, including women, flowers, and self-portraiture.

One featured work is In Praise of Flower Hunting, an impression made as a gift for the Museum by the artist in 1965. Measuring over 4 x 5 feet, it is made of 14 sections joined together and depicts huntsman on horseback, with dogs and birds, racing through a field of flowers. In reworking a traditional Chinese hunting theme into a Buddhist expression of peace, Munakata did not arm the huntsmen with bows and arrows. "The huntsmen are after flowers,"he explains, "and so must hunt with the heart.”

Born the son of a poor blacksmith in rural northern Japan, Munakata was deeply influenced by the Mingei (folk arts) movement in the 1930s. Believing that creativity should emerge spontaneously and naturally from one's inner spirit, he became famous for the speed and intensity with which he worked. After the war, Munakata gained international recognition for his achievements. He was the first Japanese artist to win a grand prize at the São Paulo Biennale (1955) and the Venice Biennale (1956). In 1970 he was awarded the Order of Cultural Merit, Japan's highest honor in the arts.

Shiko Munakata is curated by Eric Lutz, assistant curator of prints, drawings and photographs, and is on view July 14 through October 22 in Gallery 321.