Portrait of Eroshenko

Here is an article I wrote for the Kyoto Journal on the Japanese experience of Vassily Eroshenko, a blind Russian traveller:

In 1920, the artist Tsuruda Goro returned to the capital after three years in Harbin. Standing on the platform at Mejiro station, he spotted Eroshenko, strikingly tall and blonde haired, carrying a balalaika. Tsuruda approached the Russian, asking whether he would sit for a portrait. Eventually they arranged to include Tsuruda’s friend (& fellow painter) Nakamura Tsune and to use his studio in Shin-Ochiai. The two artists set up side by side, and painted Eroshenko as he sat on the sofa. Visiting the (rebuilt) studio north of Shinjuku, one can recreate the situation, the sofa pushed up against the wall, Nakamura standing straight on and Tsuruda to the right.

https://kyotojournal.org/uncategorized/portrait-of-eroshenko/