Kabuki Play
Artist
Roger Shimomura
(American, born 1939)
Printer
The Lawrence Lithography Workshop
(American, founded 1979)
Date1985
MediumLithograph on Rives BFK white paper
DimensionsImage: 21 × 29 inches (53.34 × 73.66 cm)
Sheet: 23 × 31 inches (58.42 × 78.74 cm)
Sheet: 23 × 31 inches (58.42 × 78.74 cm)
Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust through the George H. and Elizabeth O. Davis Fund and the Andrew Atterbury and Gwen Prentice Fund
Object number2024.9.113
Edition/State/Proofed. 55
On View
On viewGallery Location
- 214
Collections
DescriptionThis eight-color lithograph shows a scene with a woman’s head with black hair curling onto her forehead in the foreground; she has yellow eyes and arms that fasten a bow or ornament on her head. Behind her, a Japanese woman in a red kimono facing right, a white woman with blonde hair and red lips facing right, and Donald Duck in a patterned jacket facing left, eyeing the two women. A hand holds a Japanese sword that points from upper right to lower left.Gallery LabelPosed in front of a Japanese fighter plane and dressed in a kimono, Donald Duck feeds a pearl to a blonde bombshell. Combining cartoons and traditional Japanese woodblock prints, Roger Shimomura references the Japanese bombing of US naval base Pearl Harbor during World War II. After the attack, the US government forced the artist and his family into an incarceration camp for people of Japanese descent.
Kabuki Play was Shimomura’s first lithograph—an endeavor that initiated a three-decade collaboration with Michael Sims.
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