Harry Suyemi Tsuchidana (born 1932) is an American abstract painter. He was born in

Waipahu, Hawaii Waipahu () is a former sugarcane plantation town and now census-designated place (CDP) located in the Ewa District on the island of Oahu in the City & County of Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. As of the 2020 census, the CDP population was 43, ...

to parents who owned a two-acre farm. Tsuchidana enlisted in the

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...

upon graduation from high school in 1952. When discharged from the Marines in 1955, he enrolled in the

Corcoran School of Art The Corcoran School of the Arts and Design (known as the Corcoran School or CSAD) is the professional art school of the George Washington University, in Washington, DC.Peggy McGloneUniversity names first director of Corcoran School of the Arts and ...

(Washington, D. C.). He then moved to New York City, where he studied at the

Brooklyn Museum Art School The Brooklyn Museum Art School was a non-degree-granting professional school that opened at the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York in the summer of 1941. The Brooklyn Museum Art School provided instruction for amateur artists as well until Janua ...

, and at the Pratt Contemporary Graphic Arts Center in New York City. While enrolled in classes, he worked as a guard and custodian at the

Corcoran Gallery of Art The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Overview The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design ...

and as a night watchman at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

. In 1959, he received a John Hay Whitney Fellowship. Although best known as an abstract painter, Tsuchidana made significant forays into printmaking and photography. He is best known for his drawings and prints in which the entire surface of the paper is covered with monochromatic lines of varying thicknesses, and for his ''Stage Series''. ''Topographic Landscape'' is an example of the former. The ''Stage Series'' consists of paintings with a single horizontal line and varying numbers of vertical lines that connect the horizontal line with the top or bottom edge of the painting. Unlike his monochromatic drawings and prints, a myriad of color combinations have kept the artist occupied with this series, which is both geometric and

minimalist In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post– World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Do ...

, for over forty years. ''Untitled, Red and Gray'' from 1982 is an example of this series. The

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, the Hawaii State Art Museum, the

Honolulu Museum of Art The Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts) is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. The museum has one of the largest single co ...

, and the Museum of Friends (Walsenburg, Colorado) are among the public collections holding work by Harry Tsuchidana.''The Brooklyn Rail'', June 2010
/ref>

References

* Hartwell, Patricia L. (editor), ''Retrospective 1967-1987'',

Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts The Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts was established by the Hawaii State Legislature in 1965 to "promote, perpetuate, preserve, and encourage culture and the arts, history and the humanities as central to the quality of life of th ...

, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1987, p. 34 * International Art Society of Hawai'i, ''Kuilima Kākou, Hawai’i-Japan Joint Exhibition'', Honolulu, International Art Society of Hawai'i, 2004, p. 51 * Morse, Marcia, James Jensen & Allison Wong, ''Harry Tsuchidana:A Retrospective'', Honolulu Museum of Art, 2016 * Morse, Marcia, ''Legacy: Facets of Island Modernism'', Honolulu, Honolulu Academy of Arts, 2001, , pp. 89–93

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tsuchidana, Harry 1932 births 20th-century American painters Artists from Hawaii Hawaii artists American artists of Japanese descent American abstract painters Living people 21st-century American painters