Fumio Nambata

 

 When Fumio Nambata fell off a ferry in 1974 while crossing the Seto Insland Sea his life was cut short at the age of 32. His artistic career, too, met an untimely end of just about 15 years. Nambata, the son of an artists and a painter himself, lived through tumultuous times: rapid economic development and social turmoil. And for Nambata they were anything but calm. He managed to create more than 2000 paintings, an astounding number for such a young artist. About 300 of his paintings are now part of an exhibition on display at the Setagaya Art Museum in Tokyo.The 1960s “was a unique period of free expression,” explains the Setagaya Art Museum. Most of Nambata’s images are watercolor-and-ink depictions of an imaginary world. “Nambata conjured a profusion of images that he painted in his own free style, unimpeded by the considerations of realism and composition that are ordinarily fundamental to painting.”