Michiko Yamawaki

Michiko Yamawaki ( 山脇 道子 Yamawaki Michiko, 1910 – 2000), was a Japanese designer and textile artist who trained at the Bauhaus. She was one of four Japanese students to study at the Bauhaus in Dessau, studying drawing, weaving, and typography.

She was born in the 43rd year of the Meiji (era) in Tsukiji, a district of Chūō, Tokyo, as the oldest daughter of Zengoro Yamawaki, a Urasenke tea ceremony master. She married photographer and architect Iwao Yamawaki in Japan in 1928; as she was a heiress and the eldest daughter of an important family, he was asked to adopt her family name, which he did - in exchange, the family financially supported both of their studies at the Bauhaus. In May 1930, Michiko and Iwao left Japan for California and then New York, where they spent two months, before travelling to Berlin, where they were reunited with Koreya Senda, who had already been living in Berlin for about two years. Senda, a politically active socialist, was involved with underground theatre in Berlin, and with the Japanese artistic community in the city, which he introduced the Yamawakis to.

At the Bauhaus she studied in the early 1930s under teachers including Wassily Kandinsky, Anni Albers, Josef Albers, and Gunta Stölzl. After her time in Germany came to a close after the Nazis closed the school in Dessau, she and her husband returned to Japan in 1932. Upon their return to Tokyo their transnational experience and education became trademark in their work, as well as their lifestyle. They were influential in promoting the Bauhaus teaching model and aesthetics in Japan. Among her creative pursuits in Tokyo, she taught at the ''Shinkenchiku kōgei gakuin'' (School of New Architecture and Design) in Tokyo as head of the weaving course, helping to bring the Bauhaus pedagogical and aesthetic approach to Japan. After the Second World War, Michiko taught at the Nihon University. Provided by Wikipedia