Description

Japanese scroll painting of a ghostly woman standing in a shoji doorway. Her robes are white, the color of death and her hair falls unkept around her shoulders. Tendrils of flame appear where rays of light shine down at an angle to catch on her sleeve. Painted in mineral colors and ink on silk.

Painted by Obata Chiura (1885-1975), painter and first professor of Japanese painting at University of California, Berkeley. Born in Ibara-cho and raised in Sendai, Japan. Chiura showed extraoridinary artistic talent at the age of 5 and by the age of 7 was studying sumi-e painting. By 14, he was studying under Tanryo Sonata, a master of Japanese painting. Moving to San Francisco in 1903, he made a living as an illustrator before shocking the West Coast with his depictions of California landscape painted using Japanese techniques and materials. When war broke out against Japan, he was interned along with 110,000 Japanese at Camp Tanforan and then at Camp Topaz. After the war he returned to UC Berkeley and teaching. He died in Berkeley at the age of 90.

Dimensions: Total size: 71 3/4″ high x 24 3/4″ wide (27 1/2″ wide including rollers). Size of art: 48 1/2″ high x 19 1/4″ wide