Okanoue Toshiko
A Trait Angel

A Trait Angel

© Okanoue Toshiko

A Trait Angel
A Trait Angel
ArtistJapanese, born 1928
CultureJapanese
Titles
  • A Trait Angel
Date1954
MediumHalftone print collage
DimensionsImage: 14 × 10 1/4in. (35.6 × 26.1cm)
Sheet: 14 × 10 1/4 in. (35.6 × 26 cm)
Credit LineGift of the artist
Object number2002.343
Non exposé

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Department
Photography
Object Type
Description

Okanoue
Toshiko created collages that combined symbols from two visions of modernity—one
Japanese, one Western. Using photographic fragments from Western magazines,
such as Vogue and Life, she constructed works that she
described as “droplets of dreams.” The artist described her initial experiments
with collage: “I cut out the photographs that fit my dreams and tried arranging
them on black folded paper. Those scraps of my fantasies turned into strangely
interesting things, things I would not have thought of.”








Here, against the background of a Manhattan
skyline from Life magazine, the
headless torso of a female figure in a flowing white ball gown engages in a
two-fisted gunfight propelled by the wing of a white bird, while a cowboy is
hurled from the sky.


ProvenanceThe artist, Kochi, Japan; given to MFAH, 2002.
Exhibition History"Okanoue Toshiko: Collages," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, August 10–November 3, 2002.

"Utopia/ Dystopia: Construction and Destruction in Photography and Collage," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, March 11–June 10, 2012.

"Toshiko Okanoue, Photo Collage: The Miracle of Silence," Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum, January 26–April 7, 2019.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Marked in pencil on verso lower center: " (Japanese characters) / 1954"

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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High Seas
Okanoue Toshiko
1952
Halftone print collage
2002.337
Meeting
Okanoue Toshiko
1955
Halftone print collage
2002.341
Falling
Okanoue Toshiko
1956
Halftone print collage
2002.340
View from Penitentiary
Okanoue Toshiko
1952
Halftone print collage
2002.332
Night of Despair
Okanoue Toshiko
1951
Halftone print collage
2002.335
Documents of Poem
Okanoue Toshiko
1951
Halftone print collage
2002.333
The Past
Okanoue Toshiko
1954
Halftone print collage
2002.344
Roadway
Okanoue Toshiko
1952
Halftone print collage
2002.347
Trespasser
Okanoue Toshiko
1952
Halftone print collage
2002.346
Birds
Okanoue Toshiko
1955
Halftone print collage
2002.349
Desert
Okanoue Toshiko
1955
Halftone print collage
2002.348
Star
Okanoue Toshiko
1951
Halftone print collage
2002.345