Mother and Child

A young mother with shaved eyebrows and blackened teeth holds her child to her chest and gazes at the child lovingly. Behind her, a blind woven of mottled bamboo (the kind with spotted markings) is rendered in fine detail and suggests a room continuing beyond it. The left side of the picture is left largely blank, and the figures of mother and child emerge quietly. The picture is about 168 centimeters high and 115 centimeters wide, with a signature and seal at the lower right.

The colors are bright and soft, and against them the black of the mother's hair and sash creates a strong contrast of light and dark. This work was shown at the fifteenth Teiten (the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts exhibition) in 1934. It was Shoen's first Teiten submission in some time, and also her own answer to the approach to color then prevailing at the Teiten and to the rapid pace of Westernization.

In February of that year Shoen lost her mother, Nakako. The work carries thoughts of remembering her mother, and from then on Shoen painted many works on the theme of motherhood. Transferred from the Ministry of Education, it is now in the collection of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, and was designated an Important Cultural Property in 2011.