Horio Saduharu 堀尾貞治 (1939-2018), 至誠一貫 (Sincerity Consistency), 1991. Ink on paper, 142 x 80 cm. Signed “Horio Saduharu, Gutai Art Association.”
One of the most influential Japanese artists of his generation, Horio Saduharu joined the avant-garde Gutai group in 1966, remaining an active member until 1972. Afterward, he made art focusing on performance, large-scale installation, and his playful sense of humor. Horio brushed this large calligraphic work, reflecting his early job as a sign painter, on New Year’s Day, 1991. His work has been exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, and many other public institutions.
Horio Saduharu 堀尾貞治 (1939-2018), 忠怒 (Furious Loyalty), 1991. Ink on paper, 142 x 80 cm. Signed “Horio Saduharu, Gutai Art Association.”
One of the most influential Japanese artists of his generation, Horio Saduharu joined the avant-garde Gutai group in 1966, remaining an active member until 1972. Afterward, he made art focusing on performance, large-scale installation, and his playful sense of humor. Horio brushed this large calligraphic work, reflecting his early job as a sign painter, on New Year’s Day, 1991. His art has been exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, and many other public institutions.
Ogawa Gaboku 小川瓦木 (1911-2000), 求む (Seeking), ink on canvas, 41 x32 cm., framed. Signed (on the back) Ogawa Gaboku.
Gaboku has ventured further in exploring the formal possibilities of his art than possibly any 20th century Japanese calligrapher. A native of Chiba Prefecture, he studied with Ueda Sokyu (1899-1968) and went on to win several awards at the Inten. Throughout his career, Gaboku experimented with unusual media and techniques: brushing pigment onto black paper, working on metal, even stereolithography. This rendering of two kanji is brushed onto canvas, a medium he explored often.
In 1953, Gaboku's work was part of the pioneering Japanese Architecture and Calligraphy exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and has been exhibited widely in Europe and Japan. Gaboku bequeathed more than a hundred calligraphies to the museum in his hometown of Shiroi. His work is the subject of several monographs and is part of many Japanese public collections, including the Chiba Prefectural Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, Saku, and the Rinno-ji temple in Nikko.
Shimizu Kosho 清水公照 (1911-1999). Ink on paper, 135 x 33.5 cm., hanging scroll, wood jikusaki, signed box.
Shimizu Kosho was born in the famous castle town of Himeji on January 3rd, 1911 and entered Todai-ji-Temple in Nara in 1927. Upon graduation in Buddhist studies from Ryokoku University in 1933 he took up residence at Tenryu-ji for four years to study and practice Zen under the guidance of the Abbot Seki Seisetsu (1877-1945). When he returned to Todai-ji, the first steps of his career were closely linked to the temple's teaching institutions. 1969 marked a turning point in Kosho's career, when he was appointed as Head of Religious Affairs of the Kegon Tradition. In 1975 the Abbot Kamitsukasa Kaiun (1907-1975) died and Shimizu Kosho was chosen as his successor, becoming the 207th Abbot of Todai-ji. He remained in this position for only a short time, resigning in 1981.
For the remaining nearly twenty years of his life, Shimizu Kosho was dedicated to the life of an artist. He became a prolific "eccentric" painter, calligrapher and figurative potter. Unlike most artist-monks, he did not limit himself to painting in only black ink, but enjoyed a full range of colours. His writing and painting styles are what may be described as obsessively impulsive. His clay figures are charmingly naive and sculptural refinement was clearly not one of his aims. In 1994, when the Shosha Art and Craft Museum (in Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture) was founded, Shimizu Kosho was made its honorary director because he donated a large number of his artworks. (BachmannEckenstein Japanese Art).
Murakami Suitei 村上翠亭 (1928-), ばくていまあるがは (a Sanskrit phrase meaning "The Path of Devotion," from the Bhagavad Gita). Ink on decorative silk, 53 x 45 cm., hanging scroll, pottery jikusaki, futomaki, box signed by Nakamura Hajime 中村元 (哲学者) (1912-1999).
Known for his whimsical, unorthodox approach to brushing kana, Suitei forged much of his early career outside the organized calligraphy world, devoting himself to historical research and his practice. Like Aoyama San'u (1912-1993), he became an influential professor at Tokyo's Daito Bunka University; later, he joined the faculty at the University of Tsukuba in Ibaraki Prefecture. Suitei has published more than a dozen books on kana calligraphy. In 2013, the Tokyo Art Club mounted a retrospective of his work.
This hanging scroll, depicting a Sanskrit phrase brushed using the hiragana syllabary on decorative silk, comes in a box signed by Nakamura Hajime (1912-1999), an eminent philosopher and scholar of Vedic, Hindu and Indian Buddhist scripture. The first to translate the entire Pali Tripitaka into Japanese, Nakamura was a professor at Tokyo Imperial University and the founder of the Toho Gakuin (The Eastern Institute). He received the bunka-kunsho (Order of Culture) in 1977.
Murakami Suitei 村上翠亭 (1928-), まはあまいとりいまはあかるなあ (a Sanskrit phrase meaning "Great Benevolence, Great Compassion"). Ink on decorative silk, 53 x 45 cm., hanging scroll, pottery jikusaki, futomaki, box signed by Nakamura Hajime 中村元 (哲学者) (1912-1999).
Known for his whimsical, unorthodox approach to brushing kana, Suitei forged much of his early career outside the organized calligraphy world, devoting himself to historical research and his practice. Like Aoyama San'u (1912-1993), he became an influential professor at Tokyo's Daito Bunka University; later, he joined the faculty at the University of Tsukuba in Ibaraki Prefecture. Suitei has published more than a dozen books on kana calligraphy. In 2013, the Tokyo Art Club mounted a retrospective of his work.
This hanging scroll, depicting a Sanskrit phrase brushed using the hiragana syllabary on decorative silk, comes in a box signed by Nakamura Hajime (1912-1999), an eminent philosopher and scholar of Vedic, Hindu and Indian Buddhist scripture. The first to translate the entire Pali Tripitaka into Japanese, Nakamura was a professor at Tokyo Imperial University and the founder of the Toho Gakuin (The Eastern Institute). He received the bunka-kunsho (Order of Culture) in 1977.
Abe Kazan 阿部珂山 (1913-1990), 菊舞香. Ink on paper, 70 x 34.5 cm., framed.
One of the leading calligraphers of Japan's central region, Abe Kazan was born in Nagoya. The flowing, quicksilver brushwork of his kanji echoes the work of his teacher, the illustrious avant-garde calligrapher Suzuki Suiken (1889-1976). Kazan was a professor at Nagoya and Shukutoku Universities, led several calligraphy associations, and received numerous awards, including the Chunichi Culture Prize and Japan's Medal of Honor. A mentor to many private students, he was named a juror at the Nitten and an Aichi Prefecture Person of Cultural Merit.
Asami Kendo 浅見筧洞 (1915-2006), Two Kanji. Ink on paper, 50 x 20 cm., framed.
Asami Kendo was born in Tokyo. His teacher, Nishikawa Yasushi (1902-1989), looked to inscriptions on ancient Chinese bronzes and stone monuments to inform his avant-garde calligraphy. Kendo continued his teacher's exploration of Chinese characters. Like Aoyama San'u (1912-1993), another student of Nishikawa Yashushi, he published and lectured widely on historical Chinese calligraphy and became a professor at Tokyo's Daito Bunka University. Beginning in the 1960s, he won top prizes at the Nitten and Mainichi exhibitions; his work was exhibited at the Nitten 38 times. He received the Prime Minister's Award and the Japan Art Academy Prize, eventually becoming a director of the Nitten. He died at age 90.
Okamoto Kohei 岡本光平 (1948-), 北斗 (Hokuto/Big Dipper), 1988. Ink on paper, hanging scroll, wood jikusaki, signed box.
The prolific and stylistically diverse Okamoto Kohei hails from Aichi Prefecture; he won his first prize at a national calligraphy exhibition at age 17. He has studied folklore and archeology in Europe and Asia, worked as a calligraphy instructor at a Shingon Buddhist academy, and mounted his first museum exhibition, in Seoul, in 1988. He is a special adviser to the Contemporary Art Calligraphers Association in Tokyo. His work has been the subject of museum exhibitions around the world, and is in a number of major public collections, including that of the Yale University Art Gallery.
This bold rendering of two Chinese characters shows the influence of the painter and calligrapher Suda Kokuta (1906-1990), who in 1988 was at the zenith of his creative powers.
Tsujimura Shiro 辻村史朗 (1947-), 土 (Tsuchi/Earth), 2013. Ink on paper, 34.5 x 23 cm., hanging scroll, wood jikusaki, signed box. Signed Shiro.
One of Japan's foremost ceramic artists, Tsujimura is also an outsider to the world of traditional Japanese pottery, working in many forms, including Bizen, Oribe, and Shigaraki. He is also a remarkably accomplished calligrapher. In the New York Times, the critic Holland Cotter called Tsujimura's ceramics "some of the most expressive abstract painting around," and perhaps it's no surprise that the potter was first trained as a painter. After completing his art education in Tokyo, Tsujimura spent two years at Sanshoji, a Zen monastery in Nara, and then returned to his father's farm to take up pottery. During the next seven years, he built a house and a workshop in the mountains of Nara, where he lives with his wife, three dogs and more than 20 cats. His work is in the permanent collections of numerous museums worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Stockholm Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Kobayashi Wasaku 小林和作 (1888-1974), 朝登剣閣雲随馬. Ink on gilt silk, 27 x 24 cm., framed. Signed Wasaku saku.
A native of Yamaguchi, Wasaku was one of Japan's preeminent Western-style landscape painters. He attended the Kyoto Municipal Painting School and won four prizes at the Bunten while still a student. In 1924, alongside Nakagawa Kazumasa (1893-1991), Umehara Ryuzaburo (1888-1986) and others, he began exhibiting his work with the Shunyo-kai, an artists' association that attempted to infuse oil painting with Japanese esthetics. In 1934 he joined the Independent Art Association and moved to Onomichi, near Hiroshima, where he lived for more than 40 years. Wasaku received numerous honors, including the Monbudaijin Sho (Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts) and the Order of the Rising Sun; his work is represented in the collections of many Japanese institutions, including the the National Museums of Modern Art in Tokyo and Kyoto.
Wasaku was an avid kanji calligrapher, and his renderings of Chinese poetry captured the lyrical style of his paintings and watercolors.
Shimizu Kosho 清水公照 (1911-1999). Ink on paper, hanging scroll, wood jikusaki, signed box.
Shimizu Kosho was born in the famous castle town of Himeji on January 3rd, 1911 and entered Todai-ji-Temple in Nara in 1927. Upon graduation in Buddhist studies from Ryokoku University in 1933 he took up residence at Tenryu-ji for four years to study and practice Zen under the guidance of the Abbot Seki Seisetsu (1877-1945). When he returned to Todai-ji, the first steps of his career were closely linked to the temple's teaching institutions. 1969 marked a turning point in Kosho's career, when he was appointed as Head of Religious Affairs of the Kegon Tradition. In 1975 the Abbot Kamitsukasa Kaiun (1907-1975) died and Shimizu Kosho was chosen as his successor, becoming the 207th Abbot of Todai-ji. He remained in this position for only a short time, resigning in 1981.
For the remaining nearly twenty years of his life, Shimizu Kosho was dedicated to the life of an artist. He became a prolific "eccentric" painter, calligrapher and figurative potter. Unlike most artist-monks, he did not limit himself to painting in only black ink, but enjoyed a full range of colours. His writing and painting styles are what may be described as obsessively impulsive. His clay figures are charmingly naive and sculptural refinement was clearly not one of his aims. In 1994, when the Shosha Art and Craft Museum (in Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture), was founded, Shimizu Kosho was made its honorary director because he donated a large number of his artworks. (BachmannEckenstein Japanese Art).
Mushanakoji Saneatsu 武者小路實篤 (1885-1976), Mandarin and Persimmon. Ink and pigment on paper, 27 x 24 cm. Signed Saneatsu.
