Professor Chōyō and the Chicago Craze for Japanese Prints

Who was Chōyō? A Japanese dealer? A gallery? I pieced together a trail of letters, newspaper clippings, and exhibition catalogues from the late 19th and early 20th centuries and discovered the remarkable story of an eccentric Japanese man—a man of many titles—who had ascended to a position of scholarly authority among Chicago’s cultural elite.

Chōyō’s relationship with Chicago began in 1893 at the World’s Columbian Exposition, which aimed to showcase artistic and technological marvels from around the globe.

Pictures from an exposition

While the World’s Fair often framed non-European cultures as primitive, Japan leveraged its strong alliance with the United States to erect the Ho-o-Den (Phoenix Pavilion).

Modeled after a Kyoto temple and housing an exhibition, this wooden structure served as a striking centerpiece that helped introduce Japanese art to Western audiences, ultimately catalyzing what was referred to as “The Chicago Craze,” a phenomenon in which several wealthy Chicagoans became passionate collectors of Japanese prints.

In a catalogue from the fair, Chōyō appears as Japan’s “Officer in Charge of Exhibits” under the name “Prof. S. Chōyō.”

Prior to this, Suzuki Chōyō taught English to middle and high schoolers in Japan, who reported that their instructor liked to boast of his impeccable English pronunciation. Given his proficiency in English, he was likely considered a suitable intermediary for the fair’s largely Western audience; the catalogue also lists him as the Japanese art sales representative.

The prints I was researching once belonged to Clarence Buckingham (1854–1913), a major Chicago financier and art collector whose substantial collection of 2,500 Japanese prints was gifted to the museum in 1915.

Three Prints in the Buckingham Collection Acquired through Chōyō

The provenance of the prints—the chronology of ownership from artist to dealer to collector—can often be difficult to trace, especially since museums have only recently begun prioritizing such documentation. Fortunately, Buckingham’s advisor, Frederick William Gookin (1853–1936), a banker-turned-curator, meticulously recorded the prints’ details in 20 handwritten journals, now preserved at the museum. These catalogues contain descriptions, prices, dealer names, including Chōyō, and acquisition dates, along with replicas of artists’ signatures and publisher seals, delicately brushed in ink by Gookin himself.

From Gookin’s notebook

The page below describes details about Sugoroku Players, now in the museum’s collection. “Bought of Choyo” is written in the bottom right corner.

After the fair, Chōyō chose to remain in Chicago, quickly becoming known as the city’s go-to consultant for all things Japanese. Though not well-known today, he was surprisingly entangled in the early history of the Art Institute’s Japanese collection. In addition to supplying prints to Gookin, he donated a kimono through the Antiquarian Society and appraised the museum’s collection of inrō, a small container hung from the sash of a kimono.

Buoyed by admiration from collectors and repeatedly encouraged to draw on his cultural heritage as a source of expertise, Chōyō’s scholarly confidence seemed to grow limitlessly. Notably, in an Art Institute catalogue of gifts from the Nickersons—two prominent Chicago collectors—Chōyō was tasked with writing descriptions on everything from Japanese prints to bronzes, swords, and even Chinese porcelain. From a contemporary perspective, we might ask: how could one person have specialized knowledge of everything Japanese, let alone everything East Asian? Claiming a wide breadth of knowledge was not uncommon in an era when the boundaries of cultural expertise were more loosely defined. Of course, some inaccuracies like dating errors or superficial analysis have been discovered by current scholars and curators, but these types of inaccuracies were common in research at that time. That’s why ongoing research is so essential.  

Regardless of whether Chōyō advertised himself as an expert of Japanese art or simply accepted assumptions made by others on account of his ethnicity or involvement in the World’s Fair, it is clear that he welcomed these opportunities. A description of Chōyō by Stanisław Szukalski, who had befriended him, details how Chōyō boasted that he supplied the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright with Japanese prints, and that it was through him that Wright was commissioned to design the Imperial Hotel in Japan. In fact, Chōyō helped Gookin prepare the catalogue for the landmark 1908 Exhibition of Japanese Color Prints, an exhibition whose installation and layout had been designed by Wright.

Just as his consultees were fascinated by Japanese culture of the past, Chōyō was equally interested in aligning himself with Western modernity and high status. He mingled confidently with Chicago’s socialites, holding memberships in the Press Club and University Club, and eventually married American musician Greta Antis. Within these spheres, he operated as a cultural ambassador, even publishing the West’s first introduction to shogi (the Japanese variant of chess). Nestled inside the front pages of each copy are photographs of Chōyō, alternately clad in traditional Japanese robes and sharp Western formalwear. His idealization of America—and his desire for acceptance—was such that he named his daughter “Usona,” derived from Esperanto, meaning “American.”

The two sides of Chōyō

These photographs project Chōyō’s desired public image: one that is dually tethered to a Japanese past and American present.

A whirlwind of newspaper stories chronicled his appearances at lavish dinner parties, his opinions on anti-Japanese sentiment in California, his divorce proceedings, and even his earnest belief that America’s social problems could be solved if everyone played chess. This public intrigue stemmed from the tension at the heart of his identity: on the one hand, he was portrayed as a mythical polymath, credited with an implausible array of titles—a descendant of nobility, professor, philologist, botanist, chess-authority, linguist, politician, art historian, lawyer, physician, and English scholar. On the other hand, especially during his divorce proceedings, his identity as a foreign “other” overshadowed everything else, as newspapers subjected him to a barrage of racist terminology.

How was it that Chōyō could be granted authority and status based on his foreign identity in one moment, and denigrated for it in the next? Chōyō arrived at a moment when Japonisme, a Western craze for Japanese aesthetics, was booming, fueled by Japan’s state-sponsored participation in international expositions. Genuine understanding of Japanese culture, though, was often secondary to the desire to consume and own it. In that environment, Chōyō offered an image of Japan—both material and performative—that collectors like Buckingham coveted and growing institutions like the Art Institute found persuasive.

While museums might feel removed from the everyday, the story of someone like Chōyō reminds us that collections are shaped by real people—with real ambitions, contradictions, and desires. By investigating provenance, we reconnect artworks to the often invisible threads of movement and exchange that have shaped their meaning over time.

—Haemin Kim, McMullan Arts Leadership Intern, Provenance Research

More to explore

See an extensive display of Japanese prints from the Buckingham Collection.

Learn how provenance research unfolds at the Art Institute.

Read about the Art Institute’s connection to the Columbian Exposition.

Topics

• Museum History
• People
• Perspectives
• Arts of Asia
• Prints and Drawings
• Japanese Prints
• Chicago
• Interns and Fellows
• Provenance Stories