Sueko Kawamura was small in stature but “big in talent”, wrote fellow sculptor Mike Dillon. (Submitted photo)
Sueko Kawamura, a former student who inspired many with her artwork and work ethic, bequeathed $100,000 to the Evanston Art Center. The Center announced the gift at a memorial service on Jan. 15, with an accompanying exhibition of Kawamura’s work. Kawamura died in Feb. 2021 at the age of 98.
“In honor of Sueko’s gift, the Evanston Art Center is naming their second floor gallery the Sueko Kawamura Gallery,” said Paula Danoff, president and CEO of the Evanston Art Center. “Everyone visiting the gallery will be able to see a beautiful plaque installed in the memory of the donor and will know of Sueko’s generosity.”
“Although only 4’9” tall, Sueko was big in talent and in life force, often laughing at the idea of Japanese women being compliant,” wrote her friend, fellow sculptor Mike Dillon, in a beautiful memorial booklet he created. The book included photographs of her from many stages and events in her life and remembrances of several friends from her classes.
Kawamura was a woman of ability and of great dedication to her art. She was born into a Japanese samurai family in 1923 in China, as her father was there on a diplomatic mission for the Japanese government. Growing up in the years before and during World War II taught her flexibility, resilience and a wider perception, she is quoted as saying in the memorial book. “I was lucky that during the war, I was young and strong. Believe me, I understood American soldiers suffered as did the Japanese. I’m the lucky one, never surrounded by ‘foreigners’ since my childhood. I never developed prejudices against nationalities, ethnic groups or persons of color.”
At the age of 36, eschewing traditional Japanese dress and refusing the concept of an arranged marriage, Kawamura came to the United States and entered the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. There she studied painting with a minor in sculpture. Upon her graduation in 1964, she received a coveted prize from the school’s Alumni Painters Association.
Kawamura then went to work as a model maker at the Richard Rush Studios in Chicago’s West Loop. There she worked on architectural models for such projects as the John Hancock building and the Sears Tower and on a number of medical models. She remained at Rush Studios until her retirement.
She also took a job as a hat check girl in a theater next to Second City to improve her English. “She loved plays and was a long-time subscriber to Steppenwolf Theater,” said Dillon in the memorial booklet. Her love of travel was obvious from the many photographs she had.
At the age of 77, upon “retirement,” Kawamura returned to her love of fine arts, continuing her painting and sculpting in classes at the Evanston Art Center, where she made many friends.
An example of Kawamura’s singular style. (Submitted photo)
“Sueko was feisty, opinionated, and one of the most talented artists it’s been my pleasure to know. One immediately noticed the energy she exhibited at all times,” wrote Bill Anders, another student sculptor friend at the Art Center.
Other comments from fellow students included: “She pushed her sculpture and developed a style that was unique and visionary. … Sueko didn’t talk much, and her every remark was important. There was no empty talk. … It was interesting and involving to watch her work.”
Kawamura’s bequest will fund eight full scholarships each year for 25 years,incorporating any likely tuition increases. The scholarships will be known as the Weighardt/Kawamura Scholarships. They will be awarded to students who cannot afford the cost of the Art Center’s classes.
Exhibitions in the newly named gallery are part of the Art Center’s overall exhibition program. Thirty shows a year are held at the Center, 12 of them month-long exhibitions in the Sueko Kawamura gallery. That allows for about 20 artists each year in the second-floor gallery space.
Kawamura’s ashes will be returned to Japan at her request by two dear friends, when travel abroad is once again possible. Free copies of the memorial book are available at the Art Center, 1717 Central St., and can also be mailed out upon request.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
