Yokoi Tomoe

Yokoi Tomoe 横井巴 [よこいともえ] (b. 1942)

BIOGRAPHY

Source: Portland Art Museum; John & Geraldine Lilley Museum of Art and as footnoted.

Born in Nagoya, Japan in 1942, Yokoi studied at Tokyo's Bunka Gakuen Women's College, one of the first art schools in Japan to offer a full range of courses to women students. The curriculum focused on traditional techniques, such as relief printing (woodcut), and realistic, everyday subjects, such as still life studies. In 1964, after graduation, Yokoi moved to Paris to study intaglio printmaking with Stanley William Hayter (1901-1988) at his renowned Atelier 17. Under his tutelage, she perfected her mezzotint technique.

In 1971, Yokoi moved to New York City to work, expanding her "range of mezzotint to multiple-plate images with subtle nuances of color."[1]

She developed a unique style which combines and is a synthesis of her Japanese, Parisian, and New York experiences. Typical of her still-life prints are "realistically rendered objects isolated on a dark, blank background. She unites the Japanese reverence for nature with the Western still-life tradition."[2]

"Mezzotint technique, the most difficult of all printmaking processes, begins with a form of cooper engraving dating to the 17th century. The entire surface of the plate is roughened by a spiked tool called a rocker, so that, if inked, the entire plate would print in solid black. The artist then works from 'black' to 'white' by scraping (or burnishing) out areas so that they do not hold ink, yielding the mezzotint's modulated tones.

"A painstaking etching medium, requiring physical strength for work directly on a metal plate, it is capable of producing original prints with rich subtle tones, in a myriad of variations."[3]

"Since 1971, Yokoi has worked exclusively with mezzotints, and all of her works both colour and black and white require two to five plates, one for colour and one for black. Yokoi primarily works the plates with roulette, although occasionally uses a rocker. To simplify registration of the two plates, Yokoi relief etches the colour plates, which is printed first.

"Yokoi's poetry is unencumbered and elegant. The subjects of her art, for example, trees, flowers, vegetables, fruit, and fish float freely in a mysterious, black space. The simple shapes are recognizable through their delicate and naturalistic colouring, which is applied with a roller, sometimes in rainbow effects. The seemingly arbitrary placement and combination of vertically-arranged forms reads like visual haiku."[4]

Tomoe Yokoi’s mezzotints have been exhibited throughout Europe and the United States and her works are included in the  museum collections of the National Gallery (Oslo), the Musee d’Art Moderne (Paris), the Bibliotheque Nationale (Paris), Brooklyn Museum (New York), the New York Public Library, the Free Library (Philadelphia), National Museum of Asian Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art

[1] Website pf Davis Publications https://www.davisart.com/blogs/curators-corner/2020-womens-art-history-month-mezzotint-cyanotype-stained-glass/ [accessed 2-18-24]

[2] Ibid.

[3] http://www.psfineart.com/artist/yokoi.html  [URL no longer active]

[4] http://www.higherart.com.au/yokoi.htm, quoted material by Donna M. Stein, January 1974 [URL no longer active]

Prints in Collection

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