Hayashi Kiichiro (1919 – 1999)
Hayashi Kiichiro (1919–1999) was a Western-style painter born in Noda, Chiba Prefecture. After the war he was detained in Siberia from 1946, and he returned to Japan in 1950. He then began traveling around the country, painting traditional farmhouses in oils. In 1970 he won the Tokyo Governor's Prize at the National Workers' Art Exhibition, and from the following year his work was accepted again and again at the Issuikai Exhibition. He held his first solo exhibition at Broadway Gallery in 1973, and in 1975 his work was accepted at the Japan-Brazil Contemporary Art Exhibition and chosen for its showing in Brazil. He went on to hold frequent solo exhibitions at department stores such as Matsuzakaya, Tobu and Tokyu. In 1981 he published the book Minka o Egaku Junikagetsu (Painting Farmhouses Through the Twelve Months) with Keisuisha. A late bloomer who became known only after the age of fifty, he spent his life painting thatched-roof farmhouses throughout Japan. He painted especially the farmhouses of Oshino Village in Yamanashi Prefecture with Mount Fuji in the distance, and his work was regarded as a realistic yet lyrical record of the vanishing countryside. His works include Okutama and Near Honjo, Akita.