TANIUCHI Rokuro’s Works; from the covers of the weekly magazine Shukan Shincho
Eyes on Where You Stand

Taniuchi Rokuro produced the cover art for the weekly magazine Shukan Shincho from its launch in 1956 until his death in 1981, creating more than 1,300 paintings over a quarter of a century. Every year, we explore the world of Taniuchi’s cover art by selecting four groups of those paintings and changing the works on display four times, examining each group from a different perspective.

For this exhibition, we introduce his works with “eyes on where you stand” as our theme. These works focus on the natural world at children’s feet and ordinary events around them.
The children he depicted for those covers are shorter than adults, giving them a better look at the world close to the ground. They were skilled at discovering tiny bugs in motion, slight changes in flowers, traces of nature left on the surface of the land or water. They also used their rich imaginations to come up with ideas—“It looks such like a ___,” and dive into their imaginary worlds. Would that we could retain those splendid perspectives and imaginative powers as adults: our worlds, throughout our lives, would be filled with surprises and discoveries. That, however, is quite difficult. But through this collection of cover art, we can vicariously experience children’s worlds.
The skill to create, in a single painting, a world filled with surprises and discoveries, seen via children—please enjoy Taniuchi Rokuro’s virtuosity.