Matsumoto Shunsuke
A Western-style painter who grew up in Iwate and painted the streets and people of Tokyo in quiet tones. He is also known for "Living Painters," an essay he published in 1941 in resistance to military interference in art.
Matsumoto Shunsuke was born in Tokyo in 1912, moved to Hanamaki in Iwate Prefecture at two, and to Morioka at ten. Soon after entering Morioka Middle School he lost his hearing to illness, and he began to paint after his older brother gave him a set of oil-painting materials. In 1929 he left middle school, went to Tokyo, and studied at the Taiheiyo Gakai Research Institute. Though deaf, he was a painter who also devoted himself to expression through words and writing.
In 1936 he married Matsumoto Teiko, from whom he took the Matsumoto name, and the couple published the magazine Zakkicho. His typical subject is the city scene, with buildings, bridges, stations, and passersby layered within bluish tones. In 1941 he wrote "Living Painters" in the art magazine Mizue, stating his views from a painter's standpoint.
He kept painting through the war and into the postwar years, producing works such as "Bridge in Y City," but died in 1948 at 36. The Iwate Museum of Art has an exhibition room named for Matsumoto Shunsuke and holds works including "Near Yurakucho Station" (1936).