Toshi Maruki 丸木俊, Maruki Toshi; born Akamatsu Toshi, 赤松俊, on February 11, 1912, in Hokkaido, died on January 13, 2000, in Saitama; also known as Akamatsu Toshiko, 赤松俊子) was a Japanese painter. Maruki is best known for the Hiroshima Panels (Genbaku no zu) series that she and her husband Iri Maruki (丸木位里, 1901–1995) produced collaboratively from around 1950. The Marukis took on heavy themes such as the atomic bomb, genocide, and environmental pollution, and constantly voiced their anti-war and peace message through their art. Toshi Maruki is also known as an accomplished picture book author.
Iri Maruki 丸木位里, 1901–1995, was born in a small riverside farming village just upstream from the city of Hiroshima. During the prewar period, he belonged to a number of avant-garde artists groups, such as the Rekitei Art Association and the Bijutsu Bunka Association, and he earned a reputation for a unique style of suibokuga (ink wash painting) that incorporated influences from surrealist and abstract art. In 1941 he married the oil painter Toshiko Akamatsu. In 1945, the couple traveled to Hiroshima just days after the atomic bombing; they assisted surviving members of Iri’s family and were first-hand witnesses to the aftermath of the nuclear attack. Some years later, Iri and Toshi began collaborating on the “Hiroshima Panels,” completing 15 works in this series over the next 30 years. At the same time, Iri continued to paint large-scale suibokuga, many of which featured landscapes rendered in his signature style. Iri died peacefully on October 19, 1995 at the age of 94.
The Hiroshima Panels (原爆の図, Genbaku no zu) are a series of fifteen painted folding panels by the collaborative husband and wife artists Toshi Maruki and Iri Maruki completed over a span of thirty-two years (1950–1982).The Panels depict the consequences of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as other nuclear disasters of the 20th century. Each panel stands 1.8 metres x 7.2 metres.[2]
The paintings depict people wrenched by the violence and chaos of the atomic bombing; some wandering aimlessly, their bodies charred, while others are still being consumed by atomic fire. Dying lovers embrace and mothers cradling their dead children. Each painting portrays the inhumanity, brutality, and hopelessness of war, and the cruelty of bombing civilians.The people depicted in the paintings are not only Japanese citizens but also Korean residents and American POWs who suffered or died in the atomic bombings as well. During the occupation of Japan by the Allied powers, when reporting on the atomic bombing was strictly prohibited, the panels played a crucial role in making known the hidden nuclear suffering through a nationwide tour.
The Marukis tried to represent all those affected so as to make their cause an international one and, above that, one of universal importance to all human beings. The use of traditional Japanese black and white ink drawings, sumi-e, contrasted with the red of atomic fire produce an effect that is strikingly anti-war and anti-nuclear.
The panels also depict the accident of the Daigo Fukuryu Maru on the Bikini Atoll in 1954 which the Marukis believed showed the threat of a nuclear bomb even during peace time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hiroshima_Panels
See https://marukigallery.jp/en/hiroshimapanels/
The Hiroshima Panels (原爆の図, Genbaku no zu)
