These five silkscreen prints form the series Five Women who Changed the World, made by Oda Mayumi—an artist so well known for the fluid treatment of her female subjects that she has been called “The Matisse of Japan.” Born in Tokyo to an artist mother and a father who was a Buddhist monk, she moved to the United States in the late 1960s to study graphic arts in New York and now lives in Hawaii. A large part of her output across the decades until the present has focused on different manifestations of “goddess” imagery. She takes a cross-cultural, trans-historical approach, celebrating aspects of divine feminine power through the ages. The five prints of this series—Five Women who Changed the World—focus on historical and legendary female figures whose tremendous impact on world history and mythology has been associated with their sexual powers: the Chinese concubine Yang Guifei, Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, the female Shinto deity Ama no Uzume no Mikoto, and Eve.
The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery already houses eight prints by Oda as part of the Kenneth and Kiyo Collection of twentieth-century Japanese prints. The gift of the Five Women series will enhance these other works by allowing us to give a fuller picture of Oda’s artistry and that of Japanese women artists more generally within the broader background of international print movements in the twentieth century.
Yang Gui Fei, Five Women who Changed the World
Oda Mayumi
Japan, Showa era, 1978
Silkscreen; ink and color on hand-made Japanese paper
Gift of The Tolman Collection of Tokyo
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
S2020.2.1
Cleopatra, Five Women who Changed the World
Oda Mayumi
Japan, Showa era, 1978
Silkscreen; ink and color on hand-made Japanese paper
Gift of The Tolman Collection of Tokyo
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
S2020.2.2
Helen of Troy, Five Women who Changed the World
Oda Mayumi
Japan, Showa era, 1978
Silkscreen; ink and color on hand-made Japanese paper
Gift of The Tolman Collection of Tokyo
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
S2020.2.3
Ama-no-Uzume, Five Women who Changed the World
Oda Mayumi
Japan, Showa era, 1978
Silkscreen; ink and color on hand-made Japanese paper
Gift of The Tolman Collection of Tokyo
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
S2020.2.4
Eve, Five Women who Changed the World
Oda Mayumi
Japan, Showa era, 1978
Silkscreen; ink and color on hand-made Japanese paper
Gift of The Tolman Collection of Tokyo
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
S2020.2.5