The “Father of Futurism” Lands at Tsuruga, 1920: Painter Davyd Burliuk’s Two Years in Japan

Before dawn on October 1, 1920 (Taisho 9), the ship Chikuzen Maru arrived from Vladivostok at Tsuruga, in Fukui Prefecture, and two painters in frock coats stepped ashore: Davyd Burliuk (Давид Бурлюк; English spelling David Burliuk) and Viktor Palmov. That evening’s edition of the Osaka Mainichi Shimbun reported his arrival, calling Burliuk “the father of Futurism.”

Burliuk was a painter and poet born in what was then Kharkiv Province (now northeastern Ukraine), at the center of “Futurism,” the avant-garde art movement of the Russian Empire. He spent about two years in Japan, holding exhibitions in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe, among other cities, and mixing with young Japanese painters. What follows draws on the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine’s Енциклопедія Сучасної України (Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine, “ESU” below), the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies’ (CIUS) Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (“IEU” below), a paper by art historian Toshiharu Omuka examining contemporary newspapers and Foreign Ministry records (1989, in the University of Tsukuba’s journal Geiso), and the National Diet Library’s bibliographic records, as of September 2026. This article does not assess the merits of his work.

The Village Where He Was Born, and the Road to Japan

According to ESU, Burliuk was born in 1882 in a small settlement called Semyrotivshchyna, in Lebedyn district, then part of Kharkiv Province. ESU describes this settlement as one that “has now vanished from the record.” IEU gives his birthplace as Semyrotivka, near the village of Riabushky, in the same Lebedyn district.

He studied art in Kazan, at an art school in Odesa, at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, and in Paris, and in the 1910s, together with Volodymyr Maiakovsky and others, published poetry collections and manifestos, placing him at the center of the Russian Empire’s avant-garde art scene. In 1908, he held the exhibition “Lanka” (Ланка, “Link”) in Kyiv together with Oleksandra Ekster and others (IEU, ESU).

During the revolution and civil war of 1917 onward, Burliuk moved through the Urals and Siberia to the Far East, and lived in Vladivostok in 1919-1920 (IEU). According to Omuka’s paper, a Futurist exhibition held in Vladivostok was written up by a Japanese newspaper’s correspondent as early as April 1920, and Burliuk had already spoken from early on of wanting to cross to Japan.

A Timeline of the Roughly Two Years in Japan

The dates and venues below are as Omuka’s paper establishes them from contemporary newspapers, exhibition catalogues, and Foreign Ministry records.

Date	Event	Source
October 1, 1920	Arrives by ship at Tsuruga with Viktor Palmov	Omuka (per Osaka Mainichi Shimbun report)
October 14-30, 1920	“The First Exhibition of Russian Painting in Japan,” on the third floor of the Hoshi Pharmaceutical building, Kyobashi, Tokyo (invitation day on the 13th)	Omuka
November 21-29, 1920	Same exhibition, sixth floor of Mitsukoshi, Koraibashi, Osaka	Omuka
December 5-11, 1920	Exhibition at Takashimaya, Kyoto	Omuka
December 18, 1920	Leaves Yokohama with his family for Ogasawara. Arrives at Chichijima on the 22nd	Omuka (per Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
April 2-4, 1921	Exhibition “The Nature and Life of Ogasawara,” Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun offices (with his brother-in-law Vaclav Fiala)	Omuka
September 1921	Shows five works at the 8th Nika Exhibition	Omuka
September 16-20, 1921	Exhibition in Kobe	Omuka
October 15-28, 1921	Takes part in the 2nd exhibition of the Futurist Art Association, at the Seiyoro, Ueno	Omuka (1992 sequel)
1921	Publishes the poetry collection Ascending Mt. Fuji (Восхождение на Фудзи-сан) in Yokohama	ESU
1922	Leaves Japan for the United States	IEU, ESU
February 1923	What Is Futurism? An Answer (未来派とは？答へる), co-authored with Shuichiro Kinoshita, published in Tokyo (Chuo Bijutsu-sha, 266 pages)	National Diet Library catalogue, Omuka

“The First Exhibition of Russian Painting in Japan”

According to Omuka’s paper, the first Tokyo exhibition ran from October 14 to 30, 1920, on the third floor of the Hoshi Pharmaceutical building in Minami-Denma-cho, Kyobashi ward. The exhibition catalogue listed 473 works by 27 exhibitors; numbers 1 through 150 were Burliuk’s, and 151 through 208 were Palmov’s.

The catalogue also carried names from Moscow’s avant-garde, such as Kazimir Malevich, Vladimir Tatlin, and Vasily Kamensky. Alongside them were works by unnamed painters Burliuk had met in Siberia, and by his own son. Omuka presents a photograph of the venue with its walls covered in paintings, along with newspaper coverage of the time, which took particular note of the technique of pasting paper, cloth, and matchboxes onto the canvas (collage).

The exhibition then toured to Osaka (November 21-29, Mitsukoshi) and Kyoto (December 5-11, Takashimaya). Omuka traces, through each city’s newspaper coverage, how Burliuk and Palmov called on newspaper offices in each town and handed reporters their own poems to be written up.

Ties With Japanese Painters

Around the time he arrived in Tokyo, painter Gyo Fumon had just formed the “Futurist Art Association” and held its first exhibition in September 1920. According to Omuka, Burliuk and his companions came to know Fumon early on, and it appears that when the Association held an exhibition in Osaka in December 1920, works by Burliuk and his companions were displayed alongside. At the second exhibition in October 1921, Burliuk, Palmov, and Fiala were all listed as participants.

What left the most lasting mark was the Futurist Art Association’s co-authored book with Shuichiro Kinoshita, What Is Futurism? An Answer. The National Diet Library’s catalogue records it as a 266-page book published in 1923 by Chuo Bijutsu-sha in Tokyo, with the authors’ names given as “De Burliuk, Kinoshita Shu” (デ・ブルリユツク、木下秀). Its pages can be viewed online through the National Diet Library Digital Collections. Omuka sees Burliuk’s own work, which displayed a range of styles side by side, as having served young painters as a kind of “textbook” teaching new movements in art, a role that came to fruition in this book.

Also living in Japan around this time was the blind Ukrainian-born poet Vasyl Yeroshenko. Yeroshenko is covered in our article on his 1921 collection Songs Before Dawn.

On Chichijima, Ogasawara

Burliuk summoned the wife and two sons he had left in Vladivostok (Omuka estimates they joined him from mid- to late November 1920), and at the end of that year crossed to Chichijima in the Ogasawara Islands. According to Omuka’s paper, a file in the Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs titled “Miscellaneous Records on the Movements of Foreigners: Reports from Prefectures, Russians” preserves a report dated January 18, 1921, compiled by the head of the Chichijima military police substation. It records that the party left Yokohama on December 18, 1920, landed on Chichijima on the 22nd, rented a house, and cooked for themselves while painting the island’s scenery.

The same file also shows that the movements of foreign painters visiting Japan were reported in this way from the military police up to the Foreign Ministry. The Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, in an article dated December 18, 1920, reported that Burliuk and his companions were suspected of being “radicals” and were being watched, quoting Palmov’s words: “We are by no means radicals of any kind” (per Omuka’s paper). The works painted on Chichijima were shown at the exhibition “The Nature and Life of Ogasawara,” held at the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun offices in April 1921.

“Father of Russian Futurism” and “Ukrainian Painter”

How Burliuk is described varies with the writer. Here are the phrasings used by the sources drawn on for this article.

Japanese Newspapers of 1920

The Osaka Mainichi Shimbun, in its evening edition on the day he arrived, reported “‘Father of Futurism’ Russian Painter Arrives in Japan” (per Omuka’s paper). A 1996 catalogue from the Nishinomiya City Otani Memorial Art Museum carries the same phrase in its title, “‘Father of Futurism’ Russian Painter Arrives in Japan!! Burliuk and Japanese Futurism” (per the National Diet Library’s catalogue). Omuka himself describes Burliuk as “a Russian in exile.”

IEU (the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies)

IEU’s entry (written 2005) calls Burliuk “the founder of futurism in the Russian empire,” and explains that, from a family of Zaporozhian Cossack descent, he drew inspiration from his steppe homeland, stone statues, and Cossack history. Among the works it lists is Cossack Mamai, on the subject of folk painting (folk painting is covered in our article on Cossack Mamai). Its bibliography lists papers and exhibition catalogues that include the phrase “father of Russian futurism” in their titles.

ESU (Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine)

ESU introduces the phrase “father of Russian futurism” in quotation marks, then goes on to describe works on Ukrainian subjects (Marching Zaporozhian Cossacks, Sviatoslav, Cossack Mamai), his 1920s collaboration with museums in Lviv, Kyiv, and Kharkiv, and his contributions to the Kharkiv magazine Nova Generatsiia (Нова генерація).

One source introduces the same person as belonging to “Russian futurism”; another introduces him through his Ukrainian birth and lineage and Ukrainian subject matter. This article has not found a source that settles on one or the other.

Where the Sources Differ

His birth date, place of death, and the number of works he painted in Japan differ between the two encyclopedias.

Item	ESU	IEU
Date of birth	June 9, 1882 (June 21, New Style)	July 22, 1882
Place of death	New York	Southampton, Long Island, New York State
Paintings made in Japan	About 450	More than 400
Year of Cossack Mamai	1916	1908
Years publishing the magazine Color and Rhyme	1930-1960	1937-1966

After Leaving Japan

Burliuk crossed to the United States in 1922, lived in New York, and from 1941 lived in Hampton Bays, New York (IEU). He published the art magazine Color and Rhyme, and died on January 15, 1967. According to ESU, an exhibition drawing together Ukrainian holdings of his work was held in Kyiv in 1998.

Another figure who was active in Japan is pianist Leo Sirota, who lived in Tokyo from 1929 (see our article on Leo Sirota).