Mother and Child

"Mother and Child," produced over a span of Onchi's career (c. 1915-1955), represents one of his most sustained and returning subjects — the mother-child relationship as an archetype of human love and connection. His multiple treatments of this subject across decades of stylistic development show how the same emotional core could be approached through very different formal vocabularies: from the more decorative, symbolist treatment of his early career to the fully abstract or semi-abstract renderings of his late period. Each version addresses the subject anew through the formal means available at that moment.