278 - KAZUNORI ISHIBASHI (JAPANESE 1876-1928)PORTRAIT OF DR FREDERICK JOHN SMITHOil on canvasSigned (upper right)115.5 x 85cm (45¼ x 33¼in.)Dr Frederick John Smith (1857-1919) was a physician, teacher and surgeon at the London Hospital (no longer extant). The portrait was commissioned by the hospital on his retirement to hang in the Atheneum of the Medical College there. The Smith family own a smaller, less refined version of this portrait which they commissioned the artist to paint after the original picture.Born in Shimane Prefecture, Kazunori Ishbashi was a Japanese master of the traditional style who studied under Katei Taki (1830-1901), President of the Imperial Court Artists. He later decided to study the European style of painting, enrolling as a student at The Royal Academy of Arts in 1905, where he studied under John Singer Sargent and went on to exhibit fourteen times. He also became a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. In France, he shared a studio with the sculptor Leonard Stanford Merrifield and exhibited at the Salon in Paris. Ishibashi developed a profitable network of contacts including Japanese statesmen, Sir Adrian Boult, and Sir Leonard Hill.His vast body of work faithfully employs the style, subject and mediums of both Meiji and European painting. The present commission from the London Hospital followed a project of thirty-seven decorative silk panels depicting the Seasons for the college dining room, rendered in the traditional Japanese style. Critics put his mastery of the two disciplines down to his commitment to preserving their integrity, with one writing that he was ‘winning laurels in the two spheres of Western portraiture and Japanese decorative art by his determination to keep them distinct, and in no way letting the influences of Western art methods undermine the stronghold of Japanese art.’ With regards to portraiture, Ishibashi ‘has merited high and deserving applause, showing a dexterity in his handling of color effects and a vigor of line, as well as a masterly delineation of character, that mark his work out from that of the common painter…’ (A. Finch, ‘Panels by Mr. Kazunri Ishibashi: An Artist of the Old Japanese School.’ The American Magazine of Art, July 1917, vol. 8, no. 9, pp. 346-7).Further examples of Kazunori’s work can be found in the collections of the British Museum and The Shimane Art Museum which holds his much-celebrated Portrait of a Lady Reading Poetry.