Who painted this, and what did they write?

December 22, 2009 9:46 AM

I need help identifying the artist and writing for this ink painting (Japanese). I'll describe more details as well as I can within.

My parents came into possession of the original painting. I believe the red mark is the artist and the black text is a poem, but no one can read and translate the characters. The painting appears modern, at least during that time period when artists started to paint "realistically," but when exactly it was created is unknown.

We're primarily interested in translating the text and knowing who the artist is. The person who previously owned the painting did not have any information. Hope you can help!

posted by CancerMan to media & arts (6 answers total)

My guess is that it's a painting done by a Westerner (or someone else not familiar with kanji). While I know little about calligraphy, the writing does not appear to be authentic, and may not mean anything.

Maybe MeFi's nosword can decipher it.
posted by KokuRyu at 11:16 AM on December 22, 2009

It does not look like a poem, the first line (from the right) looks like the year. I think it says "一九八〇年" - 1980. Second line I am fairly certain reads "四月二十三日"　- April 23rd. Third line looks like a signature by the artist. 主冥　写(?? ) - drawn by 主冥 (these two characters also appear in the red stamp mark.


I am not sure about the name of the artist at all.


If you have a picture of better resolution I might be able to make out the fuzzy name of the artist. Good luck.
posted by jstarlee at 11:18 AM on December 22, 2009

The red part looks kind of like 金美 or 全美. Last character on third line may be 高？
posted by emeiji at 12:29 PM on December 22, 2009

I agree with jstarlee on the first two lines: April 23, 1980.

I have no idea what the third line says.

I'm pretty sure the second character on the red stamp is 美 (Yoshi), but I can't figure out the first character. So I'm assuming the artist's first name is Yoshi.
posted by photo guy at 3:25 PM on December 22, 2009

I agree with jstarlee's take, except that I think the artist's name is 立美 (which is in both the third handwritten line and the stamp). I think it might even be Shimura Tatsumi (志村立美), although if the date on the work is correct that means he produced it about a month before he passed away.

Why not try contacting the people running Shimura's website, and asking what they think? Even if they're unwilling to authenticate based on a jpeg, if they're inclined to help they should at least be able to tell you if that red stamp was one that Shimura used. (I saw a couple of similar ones on the site, but nothing exactly the same.)
posted by No-sword at 6:56 PM on December 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

I think No-sword's got it - it certainly looks inline with his other paintings.

Also according to the wiki entry (only japanese now) - He passed away on May 4th so it would be about 10 days before he passed away.

Other than the obvious potential monetary value I think it would be worthwhile to find out the story behind the painting - this could be his painting for all we know.

Good luck!
posted by jstarlee at 7:19 AM on December 24, 2009