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Clifton Karhu became a Japanese artist

The Duluth native adopted Japan as his home, and successfully pursued a career in wood-block printmaking

By Ben Cohen, Star Tribune

Last update: March 27, 2007 - 10:30 PM

Clifton Karhu, a Duluth native and artist who lived and worked in Japan for more than 50 years, died of liver cancer on Saturday in Kanazawa, Japan. The internationally renowned wood-block printmaker, who lived in Kyoto, was 79.

His work captured Japanese architecture of a bygone era.

Karhu, who was of Finnish descent, was described by his twin brother, Raymond of Coon Rapids, "as more Japanese than the Japanese."He doesn't have any Western clothes," said Raymond Karhu. "He wears kimonos."

WCCO radio personality Charlie Boone became friends with Clifton Karhu in 1967 and has collected his work since.

"The thing that fascinated me most is the way he lived, and his art," Boone said. "He was immersed and surrounded by Japanese art. He was so sincere in his love of all things Japanese."He was considered one of the best wood-block artists in Japan by the Japanese," Boone added.

Karhu, a graduate of what is now called the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, first went to Japan as a U.S. Army soldier shortly after World War II. He returned with his wife, Lois, in the 1950s to sell Lutheran missionary literature.

His missionary and for-profit work did not work out, but he remained in Japan. He turned to fishing and teaching English for a living, and to painting.

His simple, bold brush strokes reminded Karhu's Japanese friends of Japanese wood-block printing, and they advised him to take it up in the early 1960s.

He and his brother donated at least 80 pieces of his art to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, said Matthew Welch, the curator of Japanese and Korean art there.

Karhu's work is also contained in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Harvard's Fogg Art Museum and the Cincinnati Art Museum.

An American TV network employed him to sketch scenes in its satellite coverage of the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo.

In addition to his wife and brother, he is survived by sons Philip of London, and Joel of the Kyoto area; daughter Beth of New York, and several grandchildren

A memorial service is planned for this summer in Worthington, Minn.