A delicate chrysanthemum painting by the tragic Nun Oishi Junkyo painted with her mouth. Pigment on silk in a silk border patterned with floral sprays over woven bamboo fence featuring bone rollers enclosed in a period wooden box. The scroll is 57 x 135.5 cm (22-1/2 x 53-1/2 inches) and is in fine condition, with toning to the silk typical of age.
Oishi Junkyo’s life is a triumph over tragedy. Born into a low family, she was sent to a tea house where she became an apprentice Geisha. In a famous incident, the Tea House owner in a drunken rage murdered 5 of the Geisha, and cut off both of Junkyo’s arms. She survived. Becoming then a teller of stories and singer, she one day saw a bird feeding her young, and realized she could paint if she used her mouth to hold the brush. She enrolled into a studio, and became an accomplished painter in the Nihonga tradition. She then married and had two children, but later divorced, raising the two children alone. She became a nun, and opened a counseling/self-help center for the disabled. This was the war years, and the midst of Japan’s industrial revolution. Both mishaps in the machinations of industry and battle kept her half-way house filled with people in need. After the war she established a temple, and continued her philanthropic work.
