Shigenobu Ito

Shigenobu Ito was born as the eldest son of a Confucian scholar. As a twelve-year-old he joined “Japan Youth Painting Association”, where he exhibited his pictures for the first time and was regarded as a prodigy. In 1899 he was admitted to the Tokyo Art School (now Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music). With “Autumn Winter” he won the prize at the 7th exhibition of the Japanese Painting Association. In the following years he won additional prizes, before he graduated „summa cum laude“. As a full member of the Japanese Art Academy he continued his studies as a student of Kogyo Terasaki at the Tokyo Fine Arts School. He also became a member of the Japanese Art Association. In 1917 he won the first prize of the 11th Bunten Exhibition. In 1925-1927, 1930-1934 and 1936 he was successful at the Emperor’s Exhibition (now Fine Arts Exhibition), which replaced the Bunten. In 1929, he was featured in the exhibition L’Art japonais, held in 1929 at the Musée du Jeu de Paume in Paris. Ito also painted the country’s first mural. In the 1950s he had several individual exhibitions. His most successful works were drawings of landscapes, persons and history paintings.

During the Great Kanto earthquake in 1923 his house burned down and was completely destroyed. Six years later he moved to a new house in Tokyo’s Suginami quarter. In 1944 he was evacuated in the Nagano and Fukushima prefectures. At the age of 79 he died at the Surugadai Nihon University Hospital.

Ito’s two entries depict traditional Japanese sports. Inuoumono from the 12th to 16th centuries was first a military exercise, and later a sport, in which riders shot arrows at dogs from horseback. The arrows were later prepared in such a way that they did not injure the dogs. Injiuchi was first the term for using stones in the battle. Later it became a game for boys with small, standardized stones, which is still played today on an annual festival.