Akino Fuku　1908-2001

Akino Fuku was born in 1908 in Futamata, Iwata District, Shizuoka Prefecture (present day Futamata, Tenryu Ward, Hamamatsu City). At the age of 19, she studied under the painter Ishii Rinkyo in Chiba, then Nishiyama Suisho in Kyoto. At  22 (1930), her work,“Returning through the Fields” depicting a Korean woman carrying a baby and walking through a wheat field, was selected for the Teiten Exhibition for the first time. In 1936 at age 26, she exhibited “On the Sand” at the Bunten Juried Exhibition and received an award.  Shortly after the war, she cofounded Sozo Bijutu Art Association (now known as the SOGA-Kai Association of Japanese Painting) with the aim of creating a forum for new style of Japanese painting. Departing from the traditional Japanese painting societies centered on government exhibitions, she sought to break new ground and explore novel, expressive techniques in portrait painting. 

In 1962, at the age of 54, she was invited to teach for a year as guest professor at Visva-Bharati University (present day the Tagore International University) in India. She was deeply affected as an artist by her stay there and made many, extended visits to the country in subsequent years. India's landscapes, temples, and people became the almost exclusive subjects of her work.  She also traveled to Afghanistan, Nepal, Cambodia, and Africa, and depicted them in her work. In 1991, she was awarded the Order of Cultural Merit, and in 1999, the Order of Culture. She continued to paint energetically until 2001 when she passed away at age 93.