Relationship between Johannes Itten and some Japanese in Berlin

Abstract

After resigning from the Bauhaus, Johannes Itten founded his art-design school, the Itten-Schule (1926-1934) in Berlin. Among the instructors at the Itten-Schule were Japanese painters Shounan Mizukoshi and Yumeji Takehisa, and Kuniyoshi Obara watched Mizukoshi's lesson. Misses Mitsuko Yamamuro and Kazuko Imai Sasagawa, two Japanese students from the Jiyu-Gakuen, studied at the Itten-Schule. In this paper, I clarified the followings: the details of the exchange between Itten and the Japanese in Berlin, the Japanese painters' influence on Itten's art theory, activities of Alekisan Nagai as a liaison between Itten and the Japanese painters, and the influence of Japanese painting contained in Itten's education conveyed to Japan. I further described that Yamamuro and Sasagawa spread Itten's education in Japan and kept educational exchange with Itten, and that their friend Eva Plaut, a student of Itten, taught Itten's education to Hiroshi Ohchi, who later translated Itten's Color-theory. Thus I discussed the contact: between Itten and Japanese design education.