Butterfly A

吉田千鶴子 Chizuko Yoshida, artist

1924–2017

Butterfly A, 1953

Where object was made: Japan

Material/technique: color woodcut

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 376 x 244 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 410 x 275 mm
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 50.8 x 40.64 cm

Credit line: Museum purchase: Letha Churchill Walker Memorial Art Fund

Accession number: 2025.0033

On display: Marshall Balcony

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Brush, Block, and Blood: Three Generations of Yoshida Women Printmakers

In Butterfly A, Chizuko translates her early explorations in modern abstraction into the medium of woodblock printing. Trained in Western-style painting and influenced by postwar avant-garde circles in Tokyo, she balanced disciplined structure with lyrical motion. Transparent layers of gold, ochre, and red intersect with a single sweeping line, evoking the fluttering rhythm of wings. The composition’s delicate geometry and subtle shifts in tone convey both grace and restraint, reflecting Chizuko’s evolving synthesis of Japanese aesthetics and international modernism.