Clifton Karhu

Clifton Karhu is one of the most successful contemporary Western artists working in Japanese woodblock style.

Clifton Karhu was born in Duluth, Minnesota in 1927. From 1946 to 1948 he was stationed in Sasebo, an American navy base in Japan - located between Nagasaki and Fukuoka. Back in the USA, Clifton studied at the Minneapolis Art School from 1950 to 1952.

In 1952 Karhu returned to Japan - this time not as a soldier, but as a missionary of the Lutheran Church.

After a while he became disillusioned and in 1958 he resigned as a missionary and returned to arts. Karhu settled in Gifu prefecture. He made oil paintings and watercolors and attracted some attention with local art exhibitions. By and by his reputation grew. In 1961 he won the first prize of Chubu Taiheijo Bijutsu Kyokai Ten (The Middle Pacific Artgroup Exhibition). The same year he had his first single exhibition in the Shin Gifu Gallery in Gifu prefecture.

In 1963 Karhu moved to Kyoto. The old residence of the Japanese Emperor is a kind of Japanese Mecca for the arts. Here in Kyoto Clifton got interested in woodblock prints. One year later he had his first woodblocks exhibited in the Yamada Gallery. This has marked the beginning of a successful career as a woodblock print artist. Numerous exhibitions followed in Japan, the U.S.A. and in Europe.