Artisan | Woodworker: Kato, Shuhei

[no-bio]

Collector's note – descriptive qualities, standard characteristics & ornamentation styles:

A predicament that the Japanese farm families found themselves in brought about the use of their children as workers in the fields in the 1920s to 1930s. Both males and females of all ages worked the agricultural fields, each having different chores. Yhis this has been a reoccurring theme in many forms of folk art. The children illustrated show the tools used to accomplish each task, and show traditional elements of clothing and head covering. Each doll is lathe-turned with the jacket, (hiaori), made of a darker wood, and treated as separate elements, accentuated by the use of a different wood compared to the bodies. Their heads are beautifully rendered using sumi-e’ painting.

Artist's signature: