Kamoi Yoko: Paintings

Kamoi Yoko (1925–1991) was an underwear designer based in Osaka who brought about a radical shift in women’s undergarments during the Showa era (1926–1989). Her younger brother was the painter Kamoi Rei. Kamoi worked as a reporter for the Osaka Yomiuri Shimbun, but she left the newspaper in 1954 to begin designing women’s underwear, and in 1955 founded the underwear manufacturer Tunic Laboratory. At a time when knitted undergarments made mainly of cotton, known as meriyasu, were standard, she drew widespread attention by releasing a series of designs for colorful underwear made from new materials such as nylon. Alongside her work as a designer, she also showed remarkable and wide-ranging talent as a painter and writer. This exhibition presents paintings by Kamoi from the museum’s collection.

Kamoi began painting seriously in 1963, working intensively during breaks at one of the two desks in the president’s office of her company. Her paintings include self-portraits, images of girls and women who seem to stand in for the artist herself, portrayals of her beloved dog Hanakichi and her cats, and scenes from the circus. These paintings convey tenderness toward small creatures, the sorrow of parting, and a deep sense of loneliness, quietly moving the hearts of viewers.

Kamoi also painted images of the female body that affirm a free, unembellished physicality, closely connected to her philosophy as an underwear designer. These paintings are infused with a sense of erotic agency and humor, and they continue to convey strong messages to us in the 2020s.

Since the 2000s, Kamoi Yoko has drawn renewed attention through the publication of a newly revised edition of her biography and her collected writings, as well as a large-scale retrospective exhibition encompassing underwear, essays, paintings, and dolls. With this exhibition, we are pleased to offer a delightful encounter with one facet of Kamoi’s wide-ranging creative practice.

Kamoi Yoko (1925-1991)

Kamoi Yoko was an Osaka-based underwear designer who transformed women’s underwear during the Showa era (1926–1989). At a time when white knitted undergarments were the norm, she quickly came to public attention by releasing a series of vividly colored, innovative designs employing the new synthetic fiber nylon. She also demonstrated extraordinary and wide-ranging talent as a doll maker, painter, and writer. Her younger brother was the painter Kamoi Rei (1928–1985). While she was born in Osaka, her father Kamoi Yu (1891–1949), a reporter for the Osaka Mainichi (later the Hokkoku Mainichi), and her mother Moyo were both from Nagasaki Prefecture. Owing to her father’s job transfers, she spent much of her childhood in Kanazawa (1928–1935) and Seoul, then known as Keijo (1935–1939). The sculptor Tada Minami (1924–2014) was a classmate during her years in Keijo. In 1939, the family returned to Osaka following another transfer, and she attended Toyonaka Girls’ High School. She enrolled in the Japanese literature department at Osaka Prefectural Women’s College in 1942, while her family once again relocated to Kanazawa for her father’s work. During World War II, her older brother Akira was killed in action on Leyte Island, and in 1945 she was baptized at Kanazawa Catholic Church. After her father’s death in 1949, she returned from Kanazawa to Osaka and went to work for the evening newspaper Shin-Kansai Shimbun to support her mother and younger brother. She moved to the Osaka Yomiuri Shimbun in 1951 as a reporter for the culture section, but left the paper in 1954 to begin creating underwear, establishing the manufacturer Tunic Laboratory the following year. That December, she held the W. Underwear Exhibition at the second-floor gallery of the Osaka Sogo department store. In 1957, she staged underwear fashion shows titled Tunica Show at movie theaters in Osaka and Tokyo, and published essays on underwear, including A Cultural Theory of Underwear (Chuokoron, June 1957, published in book form by Bonbonsha the following year). She directed the film Underwear Makes the Woman in 1958. Kamoi began painting seriously in 1963 and went on to hold frequent solo exhibitions, starting with Miss Fraudster in 1966, followed by Rose of the Sea in 1969 and In Praise of Hanakichi in 1972, dedicated to her late beloved dog. Her talent as a writer is also evident in numerous books, including Boké the Stray Dog (Tokyo Sogensha, 1958) and I Want to Ride a Donkey and Sell Underwear (San-ichi Publishing, 1973).