Kojima Torajiro
A Western-style painter from Nariwa, Okayama Prefecture. Supported by the businessman Ohara Magosaburo, he studied in Europe and collected on the spot the works that became the foundation of the Ohara Museum of Art's Western painting collection.
Kojima Torajiro was born in 1881 (Meiji 14) in Nariwa Town, Kawakami District, Okayama Prefecture (now Takahashi). While studying at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts he became a scholarship student of the Ohara family of Kurashiki, and formed a lifelong friendship with Ohara Magosaburo, later head of the family. He graduated from the special course in Western painting at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts in 1904 (Meiji 37). At the 1907 (Meiji 40) Tokyo Prefectural Industrial Exhibition, his "Garden of Compassion" won first prize.
In 1908 (Meiji 41), with Ohara Magosaburo's support, he went to Europe, studied at the Municipal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium, and graduated at the top of his class in 1912 (Meiji 45). His work is marked by bright colors learned from Impressionism and canvases full of light. "Belgian Girl in Kimono" (1911) at the Ohara Museum of Art dates from his studies abroad and shows a girl wearing a Japanese kimono in vivid color.
Kojima proposed to Magosaburo that Japanese painters and the public should be shown genuine Western paintings, and in the Taisho era he went to Europe again and bought works. El Greco's "The Annunciation" and Gauguin's "Te Nave Nave Fenua (The Delightful Land)" are among the results. He died in 1929 (Showa 4), and the next year Magosaburo opened the Ohara Museum of Art in Kurashiki in his memory. Kojima's works are also held at the Takahashi City Nariwa Museum in his hometown.
