Tatsumi Shimura is our most favorite artist. Rarely seen in Japan and outside of Japan as Tatsumi prints are extremely rare, highly cherished in Japan, and seldom sold. Tatsumi specialized in bijin ga - prints of beautiful women. He is most famous for his series "Five Figures of Modern Beauties". He says such a thing when Tatsumi was 70 years old. "Even if I get old, I will draw a woman to 80 years old, 90 years old. It is a Japanese sexy woman with sex appeal. However, it is a woman with a sex appeal that is never only beautiful. If I draw a beautiful woman with no sex appeal like a doll, then I have no sex appeal by myself. I don't want to draw a beautiful Japanese woman like a doll. So I want to value sex appeal more to draw a beautiful woman." He has a very similar spirit with the spirit of Utamaro. We want to try to introduce more Tatsumi prints not well known outside Japan. Please see and enjoy the Tatsumi world with us.
Mr. Tatsunori Shimura (Tatsumi's son)
One day I visited Tatsumi's son. He looks a lot like Tatsumi. I had the chance to talk to him and Tatsumi's wife Kazuko-san. They told me many interesting stories about Mr. Tasumi Shimura. I wanted to share some with you. Do you know "Playing Battledore" of Five Figures of Modern Beauties series? This model is Tatsumi's wife Kazuko-san. She is very small in figure and a really lovely lady. The way she spoke was very cute. According to his family, Tatsumi was a very social, funny, and interesting man, however, midnight (after TV time) he always starts to draw painting (Bijin-ga) very seriously, without talking. Nobody could talk to him around that time. He was so serious about drawing/painting on a very quiet night. Tatsunori san was watching his father's back since he was a child. Tatsunori san showed me a painting of one girl. This girl is a model of one novel who had very serious tuberculosis. It was a very sad story. So Tatsumi tried to show how ill she was, and also how delicate she was with fine details. She looks sad and unhappy, however, she was still beautiful. He said this is different Bijin-ga from what he normally did.
