Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the 140th birthday of Uemura Shoen, a female artist from Japan whose important works were in Meiki, Taisho and early Showa period painting.
The name is actually a pseudonym for Uemura Tsune, an artist born in Kyoto whose paintings of beautiful women still attract art fans today.
There are dedicated Pinterest pages for her work, which is pretty impressive, and plenty of her paintings can be seen at the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art in Japan. There are some good write-ups on her on various art gallery websites, but this one from Sakura gallery seems the most apt.
Today’s Google Doodle; the image of the lady represents Jo-no-mai, Uemera’s 1936 masterpiece
She died in 1949, and in her later years Shoen worked on patriotic pieces as Japan fought in the Pacific leg of World War II.
She was given the Order of Culture, the first woman to be awarded it, just one year before her death.
Daughter Miyuki, Flame, and Cherry Blossom were just some of Uemura Shoen’s works, images via Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain
