OTSU, Japan – It’s a terribly tragic scene: On the left side of the painting, a white heron sprays water on a raging fire, desperately trying to extinguish the flames engulfing a shrine. On the right, the same heron lies on the shores of Lake Biwa, exhausted to death by his valiant effort. Although based on a local legend, the painting also contains a premonition about its creator. Setsuko Mitsuhashi painted “The White Heron’s Reward” (1973) just months after losing her dominant right arm to a malignant tumor. Shortly after its completion, she learned that the cancer had spread to her lung. She would only survive to age 35, leaving behind a nascent artistic career, a husband and two young children. But like the heron, she fought with courage and passion, painting powerful works like this until the very end.
Three worlds drawn by Setsuko Mitsuhashi at the Setsuko Mitsuhashi Memorial Museum commemorates three creative phases in the artist’s short life: his beginnings as a botanically-focused artist, his travels in Southeast Asia, and his final series based on regional myths and his own imminent death. The exhibition is a revelation, offering an intimate look at an artist whose life and work are little known but incredibly inspiring.
Mitsuhashi was born on March 3, 1939 in Kyoto, Japan. Coming from a scholarly family, she studied painting with artists like Fuku Akino and Tadashi Ishimoto at Kyoto City University of the Arts. She married fellow painter Yasumasa Suzuki in 1968 and moved to Otsu, a small town on the shores of Lake Biwa in Shiga Prefecture. The couple’s home sits on a wooded hill that now also houses the artist’s memorial museum. Surrounded by nature, Mitsuhashi incorporated seasonally occurring plants into her work. ‘Pond’s Edge’ (1968) is a glittering, dreamy vision of local flora painted in the same month as her wedding. Although many would overlook these weeds and wildflowers, they held special significance to the artist. flowers like okinagusa (Pulsatilla cernua) appear throughout his art, where they symbolize the fragility and beauty of life.
“Yodaka Star” is based on one of Mitsuhashi’s favorite fairy tales, “Yodaka no Hoshi” (1971) by Kenji Miyazawa. In the story, a lone, ostracized nightjar flies through the sky until it becomes a star. Like Mitsuhashi herself, the bird embodies a mixture of sacrifice and self-knowledge. Here he is depicted at the pivotal moment when he decides to stop consuming insects or other creatures and leave Earth. Gestural, rapid brushstrokes convey the nighthawk’s torment, but its glowing red eyes indicate a sense of strength.
Between December 1967 and January 1968, Mitsuhashi traveled to India and Cambodia on a drawing trip with a group of other artists. His impressions continued to inform his painting in the years following his return to Japan. In “Earthen Child” (1972), the artist pastes different characters and places as if reconstructing distant memories. The boy’s face may be inspired by his son, who also appears in the lower left corner of the bustling market scene in “Thousand Dumplings”, painted later that same year. In both works, she is shown to be an attentive observer not only of plants, but also of ordinary people going about their daily lives.
1972 was the most productive year of Mitsuhashi’s artistic life. She exhibited frequently and produced 24 paintings, many of them large scale. Then, at the end of the year, she began to experience extreme pain and swelling in her right shoulder. In early January 1973, he was diagnosed with a malignant acromioclavicular tumour. His entire right arm, as well as his right shoulder blade and collarbone, would have to be amputated. She would soon lose her dominant hand. Despite her serious condition, she completed another painting before her operation.
This piece, “Legend of the Lake” (1973), marks a crucial turning point in Mitsuhashi’s trajectory. From now on, his paintings will be a poignant mix of local legends from the Lake Biwa region and his own autobiography. “The Vesper Bell of Mii Temple I” (1973) was painted just three months after being discharged from hospital, but shows no signs of technical difficulty. Like many of his final works, the large-scale painting features a spectral woman in a red kimono and a young child enduring a painful process of separation. This piece references a local legend in which a woman who was once a dragon gives up her eyes to feed her human baby after being called back to her home inside Lake Biwa. The parallels to Mitsuhashi’s situation as she struggled to come to terms with her illness and impending death are striking.
One of Mitsuhashi’s last plays is “Mother and Child” (1974). The tender portrait is based on a sketch that her husband made shortly after the artist gave birth to his son in 1970. Here the surface is finer and more agitated than in previous works, and his strokes visible brushwork seem to express a sense of urgency and emotion. Nevertheless, her farewell gesture is that of giving, of wanting to take care of her children when she herself needed a lot of care. It’s a heartbreaking reminder of the years Mitsuhashi wouldn’t share with her children, who were just three and five when she died in February 1975.
Mitsuhashi’s paintings are some of the most moving and fascinating works I have seen. It is impossible to see his creations without viscerally feeling his tenacious spirit and deep sorrow. That his life was cut short is absolutely heartbreaking. But the work she left behind offers us valuable insights into how fear and grief can sometimes turn into rare acceptance and grace. The presence of the deceased artist is palpable not only in the paintings on display; her husband still gives art lessons in his museum and his former residence is located next door. Nearly 50 years after the artist’s death, his legacy lives on there and in the hearts of all who see his art.
Three worlds drawn by Setsuko Mitsuhashi continues at the Setsuko Mitsuhashi Memorial Museum (1-1 Kozekicho, Otsu, Shiga, Japan) through June 18. The exhibition was curated by Seiji Hiraishi, director of the museum.
