Samurai-Inspired Art

American artist David Stanley Hewett explains how old-fashioned chivalry informs his works.

David Stanley Hewett recently turned 50, but his faith in the innate goodness of people remains as strong as ever.

“I was always an idealist,” says the Karuizawa-based artist. “Don’t lie. Heroes are a good thing. Opening the door is a good thing.”

This interest in chivalry and magnanimity extends to bushido, the ancient samurai code of ethics, and is reflected in Hewett’s gold leaf and acrylic abstract paintings, which he exhibits at the Frederick Harris Gallery this month.

Once a struggling artist in Kichijoji, Hewett’s paintings and screens are now displayed in luxury Tokyo hotels and department stores. Japan’s first lady, Akie Abe, even presented one of his bushido-themed paintings to Melania Trump, the wife of US President Donald Trump, last year.

“It was just persistence over time,” says the former US Marine. “Perseverance and luck are sometimes confused.”
His bold, vivid paintings are steeped in samurai mythology. The Kanazawa gold leaf represents Japanese elegance while the black and red in his works symbolize discipline and passion, according to Hewett.

A military history buff, whose first break was a 108-piece commission from the Imperial Hotel, Hewett says he envisions scenes from battlefields of old while he works.

“I can get depressed awfully quickly thinking about all the awful things people have done to each other in the last 200,000 years,” says Hewett, whose mother was a professional painter. “Or you can look at the best things that we have done and try to encourage more of that.”

Originally from upstate New York, Hewett encountered the ideas of bushido while studying karate from age 14. At age 25, after three years of trying to make a career of art in Japan, he became a warrior himself.

“I joined the Marine Corps thinking I would be surrounded by guys who thought integrity was important, honor mattered, and what you say and what you do should somewhat be aligned,” says Hewett, who became a cold-weather specialist,
a rifleman on skis. “Bushido is a lot about that.”

After completing his service, he returned to Japan as a banker. Hewett, who studied art and Japanese history at the University of Massachusetts, spent more than a decade in finance, which helped fund his art.

When his daughter was born in 2010, he left banking and built a studio in Karuizawa and began mastering brushstrokes under the tutelage of a local Japanese painter.

Hewett, who is currently preparing for an exhibition in Seoul, now creates Japanese folding screens adhered with deerskin gel and nails shaved from bamboo, as well as less time-consuming canvases.

“I started putting gold leaf on canvas, which no one had ever done, and mixing it with acrylic,” he says. “People thought I was crazy.”

Gallery Exhibition
Apr 10–30

Gallery Reception
Apr 10

Words: Nick Narigon
Image: Kayo Yamawaki