Conrad Marca-Relli
an hommage to the warrior woman
in the ancient Japan

Conrad Marca-Relli
The Woman of Samura, 1958
oil, chalk and canvas collage on canvas
162,5 x 152 cm | 64 x 60 in.

A detail of The Woman of Samura by Marca-Relli.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, Tomoe Gozen, ca. 1875, woodcut.

The work is a tribute to the figure of the onna-bugeisha, literally “woman of martial arts”, or the warrior woman belonging to the Japanese nobility who in feudal Japan was trained in the use of weapons to protect her home, family and honor in wartime. Tomoe Gozen, of whom there is an imaginary portrait by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi realized around 1875, is the only female warrior (onnamusha or onna-bugeisha) described in the epic literature of the samurai tradition.

Extraordinary representation of the battle of Awazugahara with the warrior Tomoe Gozen who appears on a black horse surrounded by soldiers, ready to dodge the arrows of the opponents. The blade of her naginata is covered in blood. On the right, a samurai on horseback is about to deliver a fatal blow that the woman is ready to dodge with strength and cunning. Above: Tomoe Gozen at Awazugahara Battle, on February 21, 1184, a woodblock print by Utagawa Yoshikazu dated ca. 1850-1870.

Gutai 8 (September 29, 1957). Cover reproducing a detail of an unidentified work by Lucio Fontana. Special issue edited by the French critic Michel Tapié and the Japanese artist Jirō Yoshihara titled L’aventure informelle.

Gutai 9 (April 12, 1958). Cover reproducing a detail of unidentified work by Jirō Yoshihara, ca. 1958. Special issue edited by Michel Tapié and Yoshihara that served as the catalogue for the exhibition International Art of a New Era: Informel and Gutai.

Marca-Relli paid homage to the “Women of Samura” in the period in which he had contacts with Michel Tapié and the Japanese world.
Tapié documented his work in the special issue printed in Nishinomya, Japan in 1957: Gutai 8: L’aventure informelle.
In 1958, the French critic invited him to participate in the exhibition International Art of a New Era, organized with the Japanese artist Jirō Yoshihara for the occasion of the International Osaka Festival. The show featured 120 works by eighty-five artists from Europe, United States, and Japan.