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.” 

 

 

Minoru Onoda - Contemporary Japanese Art

 

  Minoru Onoda  was an important member of the Gutai Group's younger generation having joined the group in 1965. His 'Paintings of Propagation' theory was a crucial step in his early career. He was included in the important retrospectives on the Gutai Group at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2013 and the National Art Center in Tokyo in 2012.Minoru Onoda was born 1937 in Manshu, North-East District, China (Japanese-occupied Machuria Jilin Province, China). He studied at the Institute of Fine Arts, Osaka, Japan from 1956 to 1958 and from 1958–1960 at the Osaka School of Art (currently Osaka College of Art). He lived most of his life in Himeji, Japan where he died in 2008.After publishing his "Paintings of Propagation' theory in 1961 and participating in the 3rd International Exhibition for Young Artists in Paris in 1964, Onoda Minoru joined Gutai and stayed faithful to their leader Yoshihara Jiro's motto to "do what has never been done before" for the rest of his career. The Gutai Group was the first radical artistic movement after World War II in Japan. This influential group was involved in large-scale multimedia environments, performances, and theatrical events and emphasizes the relationship between body and matter in pursuit of originality.
Through newly-available materials and artistic freedom post WWII, Onoda questioned new forms, styles and hierarchy through lines and circles.Awed by manufacturing concepts of repetition and quantity, he chose amalgamations of gradually-sized dots on panel with relief, creating organically-growing shapes, progressing to infinite circles and finally monochrome painting where the edge matters.Wikipedia.

 

 

 

 

Tsuruko Yamazaki - Gutai group - Contemporary Japanese art

Tsuruko Yamazaki
Born in 1925, Ashiya, Hyogo, Japan
Tsuruko Yamazaki was the only woman artist who remained a member of the Gutai Art Association from its founding to its disbandment. Shortly after joining the Association, she produced glittering works using tin and zinc plates. Seeing her works, Michel Tapié, a French art critic who supported Gutai, suggested that she should paint on canvas, because those metals were not sufficiently durable. Around the end of 1950s, she began painting on canvas using bright primary colors. The work titled by a figure , displayed at her solo exhibition in 1963 held at Gutai Pinacotheca, is highlighted by a cloud-like shape, which became the title of the work. This work is lively and full of energy, with dynamic stripes running diagonally and colorful shapes and lines floating above the painting surface. In this oil painting, the artist demonstrates the powerful brightness that she had previously found in metal materials.