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拍品專文
Painted one year before the artist's death in Tokyo in July 1982, this luminous painting exemplifies an art that rests securely in Japanese traditions as well as in the avant-garde precepts of the New York School. A contemporary and friend of painters Barnett Newman (1905-1970), Mark Rothko (1903-1970), and Franz Kline (1910-1962), Okada Kenzo found a symbiosis between two apparently divergent styles and gave new expression to the shimmering color, clarity of form, and philosophical relation to nature so important in the older arts of Japan by combining these elements with the expansiveness of modern Western abstraction.
Born in Yokohama Okada studied Western-style painting at the Tokyo Art School. After two years he left for Paris to work with Fujita Tsuguji (1886-1968) and exhibited there in the Salon d'automne of 1927. He returned to Japan the following year and his long career of exhibitions began with one-man shows at the Mitsukoshi Department Store in 1928 and at the Nichido Gallery from 1936-41. He became a member of the Nikakai (Japan's largest contemporary cultural group) one year after winning its prize in 1936. Okada taught and showed his work in Japan until moving to New York in 1951. Although he lived in New York for only seven years, his exhibitions at the Betty Parsons Gallery spanned a twenty-five year period.
The 1950s and 1960s brought Okada great recognition. He won the Art Institute of Chicago prize in 1954, the Carnegie Institute award and the American Arts and Letters prize in 1955 and his work was included in the Sao Paulo Biennale the same year. Upon his return to Japan in 1958 he represented his native country in the Venice Biennial, won the UNESCO award and had a solo exhibition at Tokyo's Takashimaya department store. In 1960 he became an American citizen and won the Ford Foundation prize for art.
In 1965 the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo, New York held a retrospective exhibition of Okada's work that traveled to the National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, the Honolulu Academy of Arts in Hawaii, the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco, California, and the University Art Museum in Austin, Texas. Another retrospective took place at the Seibu Museum of Art in Tokyo and at the Fukuoka Modern Art Museum in 1982. Okada Kenzo is represented in museum and private collections worldwide.
In his catalogue essay for Okada's exhibition in 1986 at the Marisa del Re Gallery, John Canaday stated, "On the score of sheer visual appeal, Okada is hardly equaled by even the best of those painters who set out only to enchant the eye and have mastered every means of doing so. The difference between their seductive attractions and the visual delight of an Okada is that the Okada, rather than palling with familiarity, releases deeper delights the longer we know it."
Born in Yokohama Okada studied Western-style painting at the Tokyo Art School. After two years he left for Paris to work with Fujita Tsuguji (1886-1968) and exhibited there in the Salon d'automne of 1927. He returned to Japan the following year and his long career of exhibitions began with one-man shows at the Mitsukoshi Department Store in 1928 and at the Nichido Gallery from 1936-41. He became a member of the Nikakai (Japan's largest contemporary cultural group) one year after winning its prize in 1936. Okada taught and showed his work in Japan until moving to New York in 1951. Although he lived in New York for only seven years, his exhibitions at the Betty Parsons Gallery spanned a twenty-five year period.
The 1950s and 1960s brought Okada great recognition. He won the Art Institute of Chicago prize in 1954, the Carnegie Institute award and the American Arts and Letters prize in 1955 and his work was included in the Sao Paulo Biennale the same year. Upon his return to Japan in 1958 he represented his native country in the Venice Biennial, won the UNESCO award and had a solo exhibition at Tokyo's Takashimaya department store. In 1960 he became an American citizen and won the Ford Foundation prize for art.
In 1965 the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo, New York held a retrospective exhibition of Okada's work that traveled to the National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, the Honolulu Academy of Arts in Hawaii, the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco, California, and the University Art Museum in Austin, Texas. Another retrospective took place at the Seibu Museum of Art in Tokyo and at the Fukuoka Modern Art Museum in 1982. Okada Kenzo is represented in museum and private collections worldwide.
In his catalogue essay for Okada's exhibition in 1986 at the Marisa del Re Gallery, John Canaday stated, "On the score of sheer visual appeal, Okada is hardly equaled by even the best of those painters who set out only to enchant the eye and have mastered every means of doing so. The difference between their seductive attractions and the visual delight of an Okada is that the Okada, rather than palling with familiarity, releases deeper delights the longer we know it."