MINAMATA, Kumamoto Prefecture--A deteriorating cloth artwork depicting a Minamata mercury poisoning victim for a traveling one-man stage performance has been restored and preserved for future generations. 

The work of renowned painters Iri and Toshi Maruki, who are famed for “The Hiroshima Panels” that portray the horrors of the atomic bombing of the city, was long unavailable for public view. 

Despite all that, the artistic creation went on display in 2022, more than 60 years after Minamata disease was officially confirmed on May 1, 1956.

Titled “Minamata Boshizo” (Mother and daughter in Minamata), the ink drawing is believed to show Tomoko Kamimura, who was exposed to high levels of mercury while in her mother’s womb.

Kamimura, a well-known subject of famed U.S. photographer W. Eugene Smith, is held by her mother in the bath in the horizontally long, cloth work measuring 1.05 meters by 4.3 meters.

The Marukis visited France in 1978 for a traveling exhibition of “The Hiroshima Panels.” They were asked by a visitor there to speak of the tragedy in Minamata, but found doing so difficult.

The couple visited Minamata in 1979 and were stunned by the condition of patients.

Toshi afterward said about her experience at the time, “The atomic bombing, which claimed lives in an instant, and the Minamata incident, where polluted wastewater was discharged for a prolonged period of time, are the same, because people were tormented in both of the cases.”

The Marukis unveiled “Minamata no Zu” (The Minamata Mural) in March 1980.

The sweeping 2.7-meter-by-14.9-meter painting was inspired by Michiko Ishimure’s novel “Kugai Jodo” (This painful world and the paradise) about Minamata disease, illustrating 284 individuals with anguished expressions.

The creation drew much attention. But Toshi was seemingly not content with it given her remark that, “I painted solely the painful world” from “Kugai Jodo.”

In May the same year, the Marukis created “Minamata Boshizo” to adorn the stage at the Maruki Gallery in Saitama Prefecture, outside Tokyo, for the drama “Umi yo Haha yo Kodomora yo” (Sea, mother and children) by actor Akira Sunada.

Sunada was giving one-man performances around Japan in the hope of making Minamata disease more widely known.

Following the drama’s showing, “Minamata Boshizo” was put on display at a center for local community meetings situated on a hill around Minamata’s border with Kagoshima Prefecture.

The facility stood near a monument erected by Sunada to memorialize the humans and all other living creatures victimized by Minamata disease.

After the center was dismantled in 2019 because of the building's age, “Minamata Boshizo” was sent to the Minamata Disease Museum.

The facility was established by the patients who won the first round of a lawsuit over Minamata disease in 1973 and is operated by Soshisha, or the Supporting Center for Minamata Disease.

The museum keeps the original copy of “Kugai Jodo” and 220,000 other important materials linked to the mercury poisoning tragedy.

Soshisha contacted curator Yukinori Okamura, 48, at the Maruki Gallery for advice on the drawing’s conservation and display, since “Minamata Boshizo” was painted as a cloth stage decoration that was not suited for long-term preservation.

Okamura recommended the creation be prepared for full exhibition after applying “washi” traditional paper to it to stop the drawing from falling apart due to deterioration.

“The Marukis likely expected Sunada to take full advantage of their work for viewing just at that time,” said Okamura.

The reprocessed “Minamata Boshizo” is currently being shown at the Minamata Disease Museum from autumn 2022, whereas it will be temporarily housed in a storage room from mid to late May given the increasing humidity level during the season.

Sunada’s widow, Emiko, 96, who looks after her husband’s monument, where a memento of Kamimura is kept and an annual memorial service is organized May 1 by patients, explained her feeling about the image of the likely model who died at age 21.

“I hope many people will check out the precious painting,” she said.

The Minamata Disease Museum is closed on Saturdays.