Kurume, Fukuoka, 1882- Fukuoka, 1911
Aoki was born in Shojima-machi, Kurume, in Fukuoka. In 1899, intending to become an artist, he left Fukuoka Prefectural Meizen Middle School in Kurume to go to Tokyo and enter Koyama Shotaro’s Fudosha painting school. In 1900, he was admitted to the Western Painting Faculty of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. In 1903, he showed his Yomotsuhirasaka and other paintings on mythological themes at the eighth Hakubakai Exhibition, winning the Hakuba Award. In 1904, after graduating in July from the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, Aoki went with Sakamoto Hanjiro, Morita Tsunetomo, and Fukuda Tane to Mera, a fishing port in Tateyama, Chiba Prefecture. During his stay there, which continued until the end of August, he produced A Gift of the Sea and other superb paintings on maritime themes. He showed A Gift of the Sea at the ninth Hakubakai Exhibition that fall, garnering further attention in the art world. However, his Paradise under the Sea, which he submitted with great confidence to the Tokyo Industrial Exhibition in 1907, received only the third prize, to his great disappointment. That August, at the death of his father in Kurume, he returned to his old home. His dream of returning to the center of the art world never realized, he roamed throughout Kyushu before his death from tuberculosis. Aoki’s career, brief as it was, placed him at the pinnacle of Meiji romanticism in painting.
1904 Oil on canvas
《Self-Portrait》
1903 Colored pencil on paper
1903 Oil on canvas
《Autumn Night》
1902 Pencil and watercolor on paper
《Jaimini, Philosopher of Ancient India》
1903 Oil on panel
《Woman Sewing》
1890 Oil on canvas
《Café Terrace with Posters》
1927 Oil on canvas
《Three Grazing Horses》
1932 Oil on canvas
《Roses》
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