Skip Navigation

Baby and Toy Cow

Yasuo Kuniyoshi

American Art

With its imaginative arrangement of an infant, a cow pull toy, and other objects of personal significance, this drawing constitutes a symbolic portrait of the artist, who developed an idiosyncratic style combining Eastern and Western influences. Here the tipped-up perspective and asymmetrical composition suggest a Japanese aesthetic, while the figural distortions are indebted to American and European modernism. In the early 1920s, before turning to painting, Yasuo Kuniyoshi embraced the traditional Eastern practice of ink drawing, yet he manipulated the medium in unconventional ways, creating a range of textures and tones through the varied application of broad washes and delicate lines.
MEDIUM Black ink on off-white, moderately thick, moderately textured wove paper
DATES 1921
DIMENSIONS Sheet: 14 1/2 x 10 7/8 in. (36.8 x 27.6 cm)  (show scale)
SIGNATURE Signed lower center in ink: "KUNIYOSHI 21."
COLLECTIONS American Art
ACCESSION NUMBER 1992.11.22
CREDIT LINE Bequest of Edith and Milton Lowenthal
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
CAPTION Yasuo Kuniyoshi (American, born Japan, 1889-1953). Baby and Toy Cow, 1921. Black ink on off-white, moderately thick, moderately textured wove paper, Sheet: 14 1/2 x 10 7/8 in. (36.8 x 27.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Bequest of Edith and Milton Lowenthal, 1992.11.22. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 1992.11.22_IMLS_PS3.jpg)
IMAGE overall, 1992.11.22_IMLS_PS3.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
RIGHTS STATEMENT © artist or artist's estate
Copyright for this work may be controlled by the artist, the artist's estate, or other rights holders. A more detailed analysis of its rights history may, however, place it in the public domain. The Museum does not warrant that the use of this work will not infringe on the rights of third parties. It is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions before copying, transmitting, or making other use of protected items beyond that allowed by "fair use," as such term is understood under the United States Copyright Act. For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
RECORD COMPLETENESS
Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and we welcome any additional information you might have.