The importance of being called Tilsa Tsuchiya

The drawing is based on a photo session in his studio. White overalls over a dark blouse, the gaze focused on something that the viewer does not see, but senses: a pictorial work. The revelation of the 200 sole bill that highlights Tilsa Tsuchiya (1928-1984) has generated new interest in the Peruvian painter: those who know her applaud; those who don’t, learn. In any case, she is an excuse to learn more about the history of art in Peru and also in the world, where her work is valued.

That his painting “Tristán and Isolde” (1975) was auctioned in 2022 by Sotheby’s in New York for $882,000 (approximately 3.3 million soles), the highest price paid for any Peruvian work of art, confirms the interest in it. corpus of the painter born in Supe (Barranca, Lima), daughter of a Japanese immigrant and a Peruvian of Chinese descent. In 2021 she was chosen as the Artist of the Bicentennial in a survey carried out by this newspaper with 55 mentions, above José Sabogal (42), Jorge Eduardo Eielson (39), among others.

“The unusual atmosphere where Tilsa Tsuchiya’s paintings are born is evident in the varied spectrum of beings that inhabit her canvases, and also in the quality of the environment in which they are placed. Characters and objects, in rare cases – a claw, a lemon – preserve the tenuous proximity of their earthly origin,” said the Peruvian art critic Carlos Rodríguez Saavedra in the 1980s. But, today, why is Tilsa Tsuchiya’s work important?

“It is historically and artistically important. Historically, it has to do with the golden age of the National School of Fine Arts and also with the very clear emergence of a woman artist in the arts panorama in Peru,” Jorge Villacorta, curator and art critic, told El Comercio. Peruvian. “In artistic terms his painting is, we could almost say, the decantation of the best tradition of assimilation of European principles in Peruvian painting, represented by Carlos Quizpez Asín and Ricardo Grau, who were his teachers, and on the other hand the fantastic development of the Tilsa’s reading of universal art, from Gothic to Chinese painting and Japanese engraving,” he added. Villacorta highlighted Tsuchiya for emerging as an independent figure, something that, perhaps, makes her unique in historical terms.

One of Tsuchiya’s early works is “Cemetery” (1958). In it, two seated figures look at the viewer. One of them with her hands together, as if praying, with an inscrutable face; the other, with her hand on her face, either out of fatigue or sadness. Blues and reds, extremes of the spectrum of emotions. The work is located in the Ignacio Merino Municipal Pinacoteca in the center of Lima, where it can be appreciated by anyone. Mary Takahashi, head of the art gallery, said that Tsuchiya is identified more within the trend of surrealism, with mythological elements that mark “an important point within Peruvian art, through which she establishes herself as one of the main figures.” ”.

Will Tsuchiya’s face being on the aforementioned bill bring renewed interest to her and her work? Takahashi thinks so, but Villacorta is skeptical. “I don’t think a ticket can make someone famous. Much more is needed, it is impossible, there should be a cultural campaign; People will wonder who Tilsa Tsuchiya is, but you have to see how many people see a 200 sole bill. But a bill is not a way to create genuine curiosity about a character, especially a painter.”