益田 玉城

Masuda Gyokujo (1881–1955), born Masuda Tamaki, was a Nihonga (Japanese-style) painter of beautiful women (bijin-ga) from Miyakonojo in Miyazaki Prefecture. After early lessons with the local painter Akaike Nanpo, he went to Tokyo with Yamauchi Tamon, a fellow native of Miyakonojo, and became a live-in pupil of Kawabata Gyokusho. He completed the elective course in Nihonga at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts in 1904 and had work accepted repeatedly at the joint painting exhibitions of the Japan Painting Association and the Japan Art Institute (Nihon Bijutsuin), and at the exhibitions of the Tatsumi Painting Society. In 1909 he became a professor at the Kawabata Painting School, and he also taught at the Joshi Art School. His work was first accepted at the 9th Bunten (Ministry of Education Art Exhibition) in 1915, where it received an honorable mention, and he went on to exhibit regularly at the Bunten and the Teiten (Imperial Art Exhibition). He ran his own private studio for pupils and toured China with Tamon in 1922. In 1931 he was recommended by the Teiten, and his entries, such as Contemporary View of the Sumida River at the 14th Teiten in 1933, portrayed women of his own day. He showed work exempt from jury screening (mukansa) in 1938 and again at the wartime special Bunten of 1944, devoting himself to paintings of women throughout his career. He died in Tokyo.