A Life in Print: a Conversation with Tetsuya Noda, a Renowned Japanese Print Artist

Speakers:  Tetsuya Noda, Artist, Professor Emeritus, Tokyo University of the Arts and Dorit Bartur Noda, Language teacher, interpreter
Date:Wednesday, September 25
Time: Doors open at 11:00
<GM & Luncheon> 11:30 to 14:00 
<Online Streaming> 11:30 to 12:40
Venue: <GM & Luncheon>
Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan (FCCJ)
Address: Fifth floor of Marunouchi Nijubashi Building, Marunouchi 3-2-3 Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-0005
<Online Streaming> A Zoom link will be shared with attendees in the registration confirmation email and also in a reminder email on the day prior to the event.
Fee: <GM & Luncheon> Members 7,000 yen / Guests 8,000 yen (Not refundable after September 18
<Online Streaming> Online Zoom fee is 1,000 yen (non-refundable) if you reside in Japan. This fee helps to cover virtual operation costs for CWAJ hybrid meetings, including IT support. If you reside overseas: no payment is required.
RSVP: RSVP at Wild Apricot Event Page (click here)

<Online> By September 23
<In-person> By September 18 (one week before the event)

A Life in Print: a Conversation with Tetsuya Noda, a Renowned Japanese Print Artist

Famed contemporary print artist, Tetsuya Noda, together with his wife, Dorit Bartur, discuss his art and their lives together, as reflected in Noda’s series ‘Diary’, which now numbers over 500 prints. 

For nearly six decades, the Japanese print artist Tetsuya Noda has meticulously recorded moments in his daily life, and the result is a visual autobiography that is at once personal, mundane, profound, and when taken as a whole, intensely moving. The series ‘Diary’ chronicles small, daily intimacies such as sharing coffee with his wife in bed, a teenage son’s messy bedroom, and gifts from friends – but also consequential events impacting wider society at the time; young environmental activists in New York during the 1970s, and the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Noda’s prints are remarkable for their sensitivity and candor, and in 2020, his ‘Diary’ series was the focus of a solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago.

The method Noda uses in his artmaking is entirely unique – a process that he invented himself in order to better express the personal themes of his work. The process is multilayered, and merges photography, sketching, traditional Japanese woodblock printing, mimeograph stenciling, and silkscreen printing onto handmade Japanese paper. Today, Noda’s method is still regarded as innovative. Lawrence Smith, in his role as Director of Japanese Antiquities at the British Museum, acquired Noda’s prints for the museum over three decades, and has described Noda as “unquestionably the greatest Japanese printmaker alive”.

Locally, Noda has nurtured the careers of many young printmakers as a professor in the Faculty of Art at Tokyo University of the Arts where he retired as Professor Emeritus in 2007. As a contributor to the CWAJ Print Show on multiple occasions, he has also supported the aspirations of many CWAJ scholars.

In recent years, Tetsuya Noda has made few public appearances, and we are privileged to have him as our guest speaker for the September General Meeting. Joining him is his Israeli-born wife of 53 years, Dorit Bartur. More than simply Noda’s wife and mother of their two children, Dorit has been a frequent subject in Noda’s artworks, and also his studio assistant. We are curious to hear her insights into what it is like to be both a subject and a producer in Noda’s highly technical artmaking process, as well as to see her portrait grace the walls of esteemed museums and galleries around the world.

Register now for your opportunity to attend this very special event – the 67th Print Show Kick-Off General Meeting!

Members wishing to register guests: please contact the General Meeting Managers (generalmeetingmanagers@cwaj.org) for the registration code. With this code, guests can sign up through “non-members / online.”

General Meeting Team:
Program Coordinators: Emi Doi and Ko Iwata
Meeting Managers: Shigeko Nagaoka, Haruna Shimizu and Chamodi Withana
Contact: generalmeetingmanagers@cwaj.org