Biography

Contemporary artist. Born in Nagoya City. After studying Japanese-style painting at Tokyo University of the Arts (graduated in 1956), he moved to the US in 1958, and continued to base his activity in NYC. From the early 1960s, he began exhibiting acrylic color-field paintings using vivid colors, while also serving as a pioneer of Minimalism that mainly flourished in the US between the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s, he produced shaped-canvas paintings and 3D works, and from the 1990s onward, he created installation works filled with a strong sense of tension, using industrial materials such as Bakelite board and aluminum strips. Through such a passage, he continued to broaden the possibility of pure abstract expression. In 1985, our museum was the first to hold his full-scale solo exhibition in Japan. This was the time when his works were being exhibited around the world and he was becoming acclaimed.