Michiko Yamawaki ( 山脇 道子 Yamawaki Michiko, 1910 – 2000), was a Japanese designer and textile artist who trained at the Bauhaus. She was one of four Japanese students to study at the Bauhaus in Dessau, studying drawing, weaving, and typography.
She was born in the 43rd year of the Meiji (era) in Tsukiji, a district of Chūō, Tokyo, as the oldest daughter of Zengoro Yamawaki, a Urasenke tea ceremony master. She married photographer and architect Iwao Yamawaki in Japan in 1928; as she was a heiress and the eldest daughter of an important family, he was asked to adopt her family name, which he did - in exchange, the family financially supported both of their studies at the Bauhaus. In May 1930, Michiko and Iwao left Japan for California and then New York, where they spent two months, before travelling to Berlin, where they were reunited with Koreya Senda, who had already been living in Berlin for about two years. Senda, a politically active socialist, was involved with underground theatre in Berlin, and with the Japanese artistic community in the city, which he introduced the Yamawakis to.
At the Bauhaus she studied in the early 1930s under teachers including Wassily Kandinsky, Anni Albers, Josef Albers, and Gunta Stölzl. After her time in Germany came to a close after the Nazis closed the school in Dessau, she and her husband returned to Japan in 1932. Upon their return to Tokyo their transnational experience and education became trademark in their work, as well as their lifestyle. They were influential in promoting the Bauhaus teaching model and aesthetics in Japan.Čapková, Helena. “Transnational Networkers—Iwao and Michiko Yamawaki and the Formation of Japanese Modernist Design,” Journal of Design History, Vol. 4 (2014): 370. Among her creative pursuits in Tokyo, she taught at the Shinkenchiku kōgei gakuin (School of New Architecture and Design) in Tokyo as head of the weaving course, helping to bring the Bauhaus pedagogical and aesthetic approach to Japan. After the Second World War, Michiko taught at the Nihon University.
Early life Michiko was the eldest daughter of Zengorō Yamawaki, a businessman from an Osaka sake brewing family, who was a major owner of land in the Tsukiji area of Tokyo. Zengorō devoted his time to tea ceremony, which he practiced in the style of the Urasenke School.Čapková, Helena. “Transnational Networkers—Iwao and Michiko Yamawaki and the Formation of Japanese Modernist Design,” Journal of Design History, Vol. 4 (2014): 372. He himself produced some of the vessels used for the ceremony. The life of he and his family resultingly centered on the tea ceremony aesthetics of seasonal change, truth to materials, and simplicity. Michiko’s childhood also then centered on tea culture, and her father's collection of old art objects. Scholars of Michiko's life and career note that a penchant for modern and fashionable things in her childhood may have given her a special sensitivity towards the Japanese quality she later encountered at the Bauhaus. Although Michiko claimed in her book Bauhausu to Chanoyu (Bauhaus and Tea Ceremony) that she had no interest in design prior to meeting Iwao, her life and sense of taste were formed by her family’s refined home and her father’s tea ceremony practice, which later resonated with her experience of the Bauhaus and the modern art she encountered in Germany.Yamawaki, Michiko. Naomichi Kawahata: Bauhausu to chanoyu バウハウスと茶の湯. Tokyo: Shinchosha (1995): 10-11. In particular, she later felt an affinity with the Bauhaus ideas of simplicity, functionality, and a deep interest in materials, their quality and use.
Young Michiko became the heiress to a portion of the family wealth when her uncle died prematurely. When Iwao Fujita met Michiko through omiai, or formal introduction, and married the beautiful, young, and extremely wealthy Michiko in 1928, he was asked to enter the family and adopt its name, which he accepted, in return for an opportunity to study at the Bauhaus. Michiko's father, who spoke German and was aware of cutting-edge artistic production in Germany, supported the idea and used his finances to turn the Yamawakis' study trip into a fuller professional experience. Access to education indicates the Yamazaki family's pedigree in a culturally elitist world: for women, the opportunity to study visual art was restricted compared with men, and studying abroad even more so restricted by social class.Suga, Yasuko. “Modernism, Nationalism and Gender: Crafting ‘Modern’ Japonisme.” Journal of Design History 21, no. 3 (2008): 263. .
In May 1930, the couple left Yokohama to travel to Europe via the US. They spent two months in New York City, where Michiko bought new clothes and had her hair cut in order to arrive at the Bauhaus as a modern girl. Soon upon arrival in Berlin they contacted Iwao's friend from Tokyo's theatrical circles, leftist avant-garde artist and theatre director Koreya Senda, who had been living in Berlin for a few years. He helped them to find an apartment in Dessau, about a four hours' drive from Berlin.Čapková, Helena. “Transnational Networkers—Iwao and Michiko Yamawaki and the Formation of Japanese Modernist Design,” Journal of Design History, Vol. 4 (2014): 373. Senda was actively engaged in underground performances in Berlin, and with the community of Japanese residing in Germany who were engaged in political activism. Senda, together with the painter Osuke Shimazaki, lacquer artist Kotaro Fukuoka, photographer Hiroshi Yoshizawa and the Yamawakis founded a design studio, Tomoe, to support their modest living in Berlin. The studio produced leaflets, posters, wrapping paper, window and interior decoration for Japanese restaurants in Berlin, which were growing in number, together with an expanding Japanese community. Senda returned to Japan via Moscow in January 1931 and the group joined him for a week. The Yamawakis went together with Senda's wife Irma, theatre director and theorist Seki Sano, who later went to Mexico and became a key figure in Mexican modern theatre, Michiko's cousin, and the Asahi newspaper journalist, graphic designer, and woodblock artist Masahide Asahi. In Moscow they saw several performances in the Theatre of Revolution (now the Mayakovsky Theatre) and the Central Theatre of Working Youth. Back in Berlin, they continued living a socially rich lifestyle with the Japanese avant-garde crowd, as well as studying in Dessau.
Bauhaus In November 1922 Japanese art critic Sadanosuke Nakada and architect Kikuji Ishimoto visited the Bauhaus in Weimar, to meet with Wassily Kandinsky, who had invited them there. On their return to Japan, Ishimoto and Nakada wrote about the school, expressing their enthusiasm for the workshops, products, and artists through their art magazine Mizue in 1925.Motomura, Kenta. “Media Literacy Education in Art: Motion Expression and the New Vision of Art Education.” Journal of Aesthetic Education 37, no. 4 (2003): 58–64. . In particular, Nakada had written an article entitled "the State Bauhaus," which was particularly influential.Čapková, Helena. "Bauhaus and Tea Ceremony: A Study of Mutual Impact in Design Education between Germany and Japan in the Interwar Period." Carolien Stolte and Yoshiyuki Kikuchi, eds., Eurasian Encounters: Museums, Missions, Modernities. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press (2017): 108. Then, the architect Takehiko Mizutani became the first student from Japan to visit the Bauhaus in 1927. Specifically, Mizutani had received an architecture scholarship from the Japanese Ministry of Culture to study at a forward-thinking university in Germany, and later apply this knowledge in his teaching in Japan. After arriving in Berlin in the summer of 1926, Mizutani first visited the Reimann School, a private art and design college. Later that year he visited the Bauhaus for the first time, and transferred to Dessau for the 1927 summer semester. At the end of 1929, Mizutani left the Bauhaus and returned to Japan, where he shared ideas from the Bauhaus in publications and by participating in exhibitions.
Following these first encounters, in 1930, Michiko passed the Bauhaus entrance exam, and the two began studying together as the 470th and 169th students respectively, remaining for two years. At the time of Michiko's study, out of 170 students, fifty were women. She began her studies with Vorkurs, or preliminary courses, which included modules on materials, abstract composition and design, as well as mathematics, physics, and gymnastics.Čapková, Helena. “Transnational Networkers—Iwao and Michiko Yamawaki and the Formation of Japanese Modernist Design,” Journal of Design History, Vol. 4 (2014): 374. At the Bauhaus, Michiko engaged in studies under Albers, Kandinsky, and Joost Schmidt. Michiko recalls in her writing Josef Albers being particularly kind and that his lectures in the preparatory course were the most interesting. She also recounts that “[Josef] Albers looked and dressed like someone who performed the Japanese tea ceremony."Yamawaki, Michiko. Naomichi Kawahata: Bauhausu to chanoyu バウハウスと茶の湯. Tokyo: Shinchosha (1995): 45. Lectures were taught in German, which proved difficult for Michiko whose German was basic at the time. She gratefully notes that Wassily Kandinsky was kind enough to give them special time after lessons and explained difficult or important parts of his lectures in English. The Yamawakis engaged in many of the Bauhaus’ extracurricular activities, such as its festivals. The February 1931 edition was an “Oriental Night” for which Michiko “learned a traditional Japanese dance… which she performed, dressed in a kimono" while Iwao built the stage set. The performance had a great impact on students and faculty alike, especially Josef Albers. It is from this night that the couple was introduced by Kandinsky to Paul Klee.
After completing preliminary courses, Michiko began studying in the weaving workshop under Gunta Stölzl and Anni Albers, while Iwao studied photography."From Dessau to Tokyo: Japan and the Bauhaus." bauaus kooperation berlin dessau, https://www.bauhauskooperation.com/kooperation/project-archive/magazine/follow-the-bauhaus-into-the-world/from-dessau-to-tokyo/ (accessed 18 December 2022). At Bauhaus, Michiko discovered parallels between traditional Japanese tea culture, and the Bauhaus philosophy of aesthetics and craft. In particular, Michiko found that the material properties, simplicity, and function of objects were treated as equally important in both realms. She described her studies a re-entered the world of tea that she knew intimately from her childhood.Čapková, Helena. "Bauhaus and Tea Ceremony: A Study of Mutual Impact in Design Education between Germany and Japan in the Interwar Period." Carolien Stolte and Yoshiyuki Kikuchi, eds., Eurasian Encounters: Museums, Missions, Modernities. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press (2017): 12.
Professional life