Hanging scroll painting ‘Autumn tree and bird’

Koda Shunko (1897 – 1976) was born in Tokushima Prefecture. His real name is Masaru, and he studied under Shunkyo Yamamoto at the age of 22. He graduated from Kyoto Municipal School of Painting (now Kyoto City University of Arts) at age of 37. He was devoted to thorough sketching. Since the early Showa era, he has been active in the Teiten (Imperial Academy of Fine arts Exhibition) and Shinbun Exhibition (Ministry of Education’s Art Exhibition), and his painstaking paintings of military chickens, geese and other birds have been highly regarded. He had his own art room in Kyoto. In his later years, he explored various techniques of Japanese painting, such as experimenting with bold expressions using thick layers of paint.