Today’s short post is a small installment of pictures by an old friend of the blog, the Japanese artist who lived in London, Yoshio Markino. This one is simple called Autumn:
The woman wrestling with her umbrella has a stylized expression of sadness (or merely exasperation) on her face. Behind her the rest of the scene is indistinct ,in a traditional Markino mist.
Below, some images from a biography which was illustrated by Markino. In a Japanese setting a causeway vanishes into a lake of lillies floating on barely glimpsed water.
A monochrome temple.
London. A stone lion couches in the wet square. Although this image is also in damp fog, the location is unmistakable.
A house in south London. There are lights on the ground floor but above a single light blazes from a bedroom.
This would have been one of Markino’s early London residences, in Brixton.
This picture, from the Studio magazine is another monochrome view of a familiar London sight.
A small group of people take a walk along the embankment. The night is dark but the woman in the foreground is carrying her coat so it must be a warm evening.
The final image is the most characteristic work. It has Markino’s favourite subject, well dressed women in London on an overcast day.
Two women window shopping in Bond Street, one looking towards the artist. Markino liked to compare London’s women with insects wrapped in carapaces of fur and thick coats.
Behind them yet another mist.
Today’s soft toy is also characteristically Japanese.
Happy Christmas from the goth Hello Kitty. HK is also an appropriate companion for the anglophile Markino since it emerged that Kitty’s surname is White and that she and her family live just outside London. Markino would have approved.
See you tomorrow.
