Gyokushō Duer

Biography

https://williamslegacychair.uvic.ca/oral_histories.html

Elizabeth Yeend Duer (1889-1951) was an Anglo-Japanese painter. She was born in the foreign settlement of Nagasaki. Her mother was born into the Zama family, then adopted as Yasu Tsunekawa (1859-1936). She may have worked in England as a nanny in young adulthood before her marriage in Shanghai, in 1885, to Elizabeth’s father, Yeend Duer (1846-1921), an Englishman who had arrived in Nagasaki in the 1860s. The Duers were one of the earliest culturally mixed families in Japan.

The Duer family moved to Tokyo in 1904, after which Elizabeth began studying painting with Gyokushi Atomi 跡見　玉枝, (1859-1943), who ran a private art school for girls and women. Gyokushi Atomi was a master painter of the cherry tree, and after working with her for a number of years, Duer took on the artistic identity of Gyokushō 玉蕉.

Duer left Japan in 1940 as tensions between Japan and England began to escalate. She came to Victoria, British Columbia She came to Victoria, British Columbia to be near her first cousin and artist Katharine Maltwood (née Sapsworth) and her husband John. Just over a year later, in December 1941, Pearl Harbour was bombed. Duer was not subject to internment during the war, unlike most Canadian residents of Japanese heritage. Remaining in Victoria, she joined a local group of artists known as The Island, Arts and Crafts Society, which included Katharine Maltwood and Emily Carr. Elizabeth Duer—Gyokushō created more than 100 hundred paintings on shikishi boards that depict the flora and fauna of Vancouver Island, developing a unique transnational style. Duer did not have the opportunity to return to Japan before her in death in 1951. Nearly all of the work that Duer— Gyokushō created while in British Columbia entered into the University of Victoria’s Art Collection (UVAC) as part of Katharine Maltwood’s founding bequest.

References

• Ancestry.com. UK and Ireland, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012. AncestryImage Name: Elizabeth Duer Gender: Female Age: 42 Birth Date: abt 1889 Departure Date: 17 Jul 1931,Port of Departure: London, England Destination Port: Yokohama, Japan Ship Name: Hakusan Maru Search Ship Database: Search for the Hakusan Maru in the 'Passenger Ships and Images' database Shipping Line: Nippon Yusen Kaisha Official Number: 29444 Master: J Tsuji
• Times Colonist, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, 18 Jan 1951, Thu • Page 18 link “ELIZABETH YEEND DUER On January 19, 1951, in Victoria, Miss Elisabeth Yeend Duer. She is survived by two sisters and one brother. The late Miss Duer was an artist and resided in Victoria for 10 years.”
• England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1995 AncestryImage Name Elizabeth Yeend Duer Death Date 16 Jan 1951 Death Place Canada Probate Date 4 Sep 1951 Probate Registry Victoria Effects: £509 10s 10d in England. Sealed London 4 September.
• https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2015/05/cousins-and-connec... [4] The account of “Duer, Elizabeth Yeend” (online at collection.legacy.uvic.ca/index.php?artist_id=443&artist_action=info) claims her parents, Yeend Duer and Yasu Tsunekawa, were married in Shanghai in 1885 and did not come to Tokyo until 1904. The latter statement clearly is incorrect, as the Japan Weekly Mail of 12 December 1896, page 651, lists Mrs. Brinkley, Miss Brinkley, Mrs. Duer, and Miss Duer at a church bazaar in Tokyo. This Duer family appears elsewhere in the Japan Weekly Mail before 1904, but no other Duer family appears.
• https://www.focusonvictoria.ca/janfeb2019/the-art-and-life-of-eliza...
• http://dspace.library.uvic.ca/handle/1828/11341 Elizabeth Yeend Duer (1889-1951) A British citizen, Elizabeth left Japan for Victoria, British Columbia in the fall of 1940, wearing Western-style clothes. In Victoria, she joined her first cousin and artist Katharine Emma Maltwood (née Sapsworth, 1878–1961) and Katharine’s husband John, who had arrived in Victoria just two years earlier. Katharine’s mother (Elizabeth Duer) and Elizabeth’s father (Yeend Duer) were siblings.
• https://downtownvictoria.ca/event/translations-the-art-and-life-of-...