Kuroda Seiki, Master of Modern Japanese Painting

The son of a Satsuma samurai, Seiki Kuroda (1866-1924) benefited from education in foreign languages from an early age, and spent a decade studying in Paris, where he was taught by prominent academist painter Raphaël Collin. Returning to his native Japan in 1893, the soon-to-be yoga (Western-style painting by Japanese) pioneer was soon caught up in controversy: newly prudish Meiji society didn't quite appreciate his passionate arguments for the artistic value of nudes. Eventually silencing his critics, Kuroda was even appointed painter to the Imperial court in 1910, and left an artistic legacy appreciated across national borders. Unfortunately enough, most of his best-regarded masterpieces were destroyed during World War II – his surviving works, along with pieces by Collin, Barbizon school pioneer Jean-François Millet and Kuroda pupil Shigeru Aoki, are the focus of this spring retrospective, held to mark 150 years since the artistic trailblazer's birth.