{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O1781466"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1781466/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2024NX9552/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2024NX9552/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"low","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2024NX9552","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2024NX9554","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2024NX9549","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2024NX9546","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2024NX9545","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2024NX9544","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2024NX9543","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2024NX9541","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":null},"record":{"systemNumber":"O1781466","accessionNumber":"PH.1011:1-2024","objectType":"Photograph","titles":[{"title":"A Long Journey by Toshiko Okanoue","type":"assigned by artist"}],"summaryDescription":"Toshiko Okanoue was a prominent figure in the Japanese Surrealist movement of the 1950s. Using the medium of photo-collage, Okanoue expresses her experiences of wartime and post-war Japan. Inspired by a new sense of freedom specific to fashion brought on by the post-war period, Okanoue’s collages incorporate what she describes as ‘the various folds of a woman's heart’.  \n\r\nTo evoke the destruction and gruesome scenes she witnessed following the 1945 bombings of Tokyo, many of the women in the scenes have had their heads removed and replaced with inanimate objects. While tropes utilized by Surrealist photo-collage artists juxtaposing the human figure with inanimate objects existed well before this period, Okanoue’s journey to this methodology was unique. Born in Kochi Prefecture in 1928 and moving to Tokyo with her family shortly after her birth, Okanoue was formally trained in patternmaking and was heavily inspired by Western fashion through imported magazines such as Harper's Bazaar and Vogue. \n\r\nAt the age of 22 while studying design, Okanoue began experimenting with chigiri-e, a technique of creating images from torn pieces of coloured paper. Isolated and unaware of the medium of photo-collage and the established avant-garde movements in Europe, her path to the medium was found accidentally, combining this technique with clippings from imported fashion magazines purely as a means of self-expression. When these works were noticed by her mentor Shuzo Takiguchi, she was introduced to artists such as Max Ernst, which complicated her compositions. This propelled her to the height of her career which included two solo exhibitions in 1953 and 1956 in Japan.  \r\n","physicalDescription":"A portfolio of six platinum photographs, featuring Surrealist photomontages.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Okanoue, Toshiko","id":"AUTH401366"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":"Okanoue was born in 1928 in Kochi Prefecture and raised in Tokyo. She studied fashion design in Bunka Gakuin and started making photo collages in class. She playfully cut out various image fragments from pictorial and fashion magazines like LIFE, VOGUE and Harper's Bazaar and combine different faces, body parts and animals together.\r\n\r\nAlthough her works were discovered by famous surrealist artist and critic Shuzo Takiguchi, her collage production ended just 6 years after she started. In 1996 her works were displayed in Meguro Museum of Art and her solo exhibition 'Toshiko Okanoue's Photo Collages: Droplets of Dreams' was held in Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance Co. South Gallery. Her monograph 'Drop of Dreams: Toshiko Okanoue: Works 1950-1956' was publicized by Nazraeli Press in 2002. Okanoue's works were collected by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in 2003, then later followed by the Museum of Modern Arts, New York in 2010, bringing her work to a wider global audience.  In 2015 Okanoue's first monograph \"A LONG JOURNEY\" was released in Japan."}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"","id":""}],"techniques":[],"materialsAndTechniques":"Photomontage, photo collage","categories":[{"text":"Woman photographer","id":"THES380381"},{"text":"Surrealism","id":"THES285500"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"DOP","id":"THES291628"},"images":["2024NX9552","2024NX9554","2024NX9549","2024NX9546","2024NX9545","2024NX9544","2024NX9543","2024NX9541"],"imageResolution":"low","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"LVLF","id":"THES49656"},"free":"","case":"MB10","shelf":"SH","box":"18"},{"current":{"text":"LVLF","id":"THES49656"},"free":"","case":"MB10","shelf":"SH","box":"9"},{"current":{"text":"LVLF","id":"THES49656"},"free":"","case":"MB10","shelf":"SH","box":"9"},{"current":{"text":"LVLF","id":"THES49656"},"free":"","case":"MB10","shelf":"SH","box":"9"},{"current":{"text":"LVLF","id":"THES49656"},"free":"","case":"MB10","shelf":"SH","box":"9"},{"current":{"text":"LVLF","id":"THES49656"},"free":"","case":"MB10","shelf":"SH","box":"9"},{"current":{"text":"LVLF","id":"THES49656"},"free":"","case":"MB10","shelf":"SH","box":"9"},{"current":{"text":"LVLF","id":"THES49656"},"free":"","case":"MB10","shelf":"SH","box":"9"},{"current":{"text":"LVLF","id":"THES49656"},"free":"","case":"MB10","shelf":"SH","box":"9"}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"photographs","id":"AAT46300"}],[{"text":"photographs","id":"AAT46300"}],[{"text":"photographs","id":"AAT46300"}],[{"text":"photographs","id":"AAT46300"}],[{"text":"photographs","id":"AAT46300"}],[{"text":"photographs","id":"AAT46300"}],[{"text":"photographs","id":"AAT46300"}],[{"text":"photographs","id":"AAT46300"}],[{"text":"photographs","id":"AAT46300"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"2015","earliest":"2015-01-01","latest":"2015-12-31"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Acquired as part of The Parasol Foundation Women in Photography Project","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"28","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"height","note":""},{"dimension":"Length","value":"23","unit":"cm","qualifier":"portfolio","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":"portfolio dimension"}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":""},{"content":"signed colophon","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":""}],"objectHistory":"","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"A portfolio of photographs titled ‘A Long Journey’, by Toshiko Okanoue  ","bibliographicReferences":[],"production":"Edition 12/25","productionType":{"text":"Limited edition","id":"THES48862"},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"Toshiko Okanoue was a prominent figure in the Japanese Surrealist movement of the 1950s. 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Born in Kochi Prefecture in 1928 and moving to Tokyo with her family shortly after her birth, Okanoue was formally trained in patternmaking and was heavily inspired by Western fashion through imported magazines such as Harper's Bazaar and Vogue. \n\r\nAt the age of 22 while studying design, Okanoue began experimenting with chigiri-e, a technique of creating images from torn pieces of coloured paper. Isolated and unaware of the medium of photo-collage and the established avant-garde movements in Europe, her path to the medium was found accidentally, combining this technique with clippings from imported fashion magazines purely as a means of self-expression. When these works were noticed by her mentor Shuzo Takiguchi, she was introduced to artists such as Max Ernst, which complicated her compositions. 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