Kenzo Okada (岡田謙三, ''Okada Kenzō''; born on September 28, 1902, died on July 25, 1982) was a

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

ese-born American painter and the first Japanese-American artist to work in the

Abstract Expressionist Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of th ...

style and receive international acclaim.The Phillips Collection. Ed. Erika D. Passantino. Consulting ed. David W. Scott. Researchers Virginia Speer Burden, ''The Eye of Duncan Phillips: A Collection in the Making'', Yale University Press, New Haven, 1999, At the 29th Venice Biennale in 1958, Okada’s work was exhibited in the Japan Pavilion alongside that of five other Japanese artists, and Okada won the Astorre Meyer Prize and UNESCO Prize. According to artist

Michelle Stuart Michelle Stuart (born 1933) is an American multidisciplinary artist known for her sculpture, painting and environmental art. She is based in New York City. Early life Stuart was born in 1933 and she grew up in Los Angeles, California. After at ...

, "when Okada came to the United States he was already a mature painter, well considered in his native Japan. To American abstraction Okada brought civilized restraint, an elegance of device and an unusual gift for poetic transmutation of natural forms." Okada's work has been featured in retrospective exhibitions since the 1960s, including the

Albright-Knox Art Gallery The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum at 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York, in Delaware Park. the museum's Elmwood Avenue campus is temporarily closed for construction. It hosted e ...

in 1965, the

National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto The is an art museum in Kyoto, Japan. This Kyoto museum is also known by the English acronym MoMAK (Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto). History The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (MoMAK) was initially created as the Annex Museum of the Natio ...

in 1966, the Seibu Museum of Art, Tokyo in 1982, the

Museum of Modern Art, Toyama The is a museum in Toyama, Toyama. It is one of Japan's many museums which are supported by a prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"Museums"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', pp. 671-673. The museum, which opened in 1981, stands within Jōnan ...

in 1989, the

University of Iowa Museum of Art The University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art is a visual arts institution that is part of the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. Since its inception, the museum has partnere ...

in 2000, and the

Yokohama Museum of Art , founded in 1989, is located in the futuristic Minato Mirai 21 district of the Japanese city Yokohama, next to the Yokohama Landmark Tower. The collections The museum has works by many influential and well-known modern artists including Consta ...

in 2003. Okada’s works are also held in major public collections including

, the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Cro ...

, the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, the

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

, the

Museum of Modern Art, New York 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 o ...

, the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of ch ...

, Washington, D.C., the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, the

Peggy Guggenheim Collection The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is an art museum on the Grand Canal in the Dorsoduro ''sestiere'' of Venice, Italy. It is one of the most visited attractions in Venice. The collection is housed in the , an 18th-century palace, which was the home ...

, the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin ...

, the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

, the

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

, the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

, among others.

Biography

Early life and education (1902–1927)

Okada was born September 28, 1902 in Yokohama, Japan. His father, a wealthy industrialist, did not support his son's desire to be an artist. When his father died, Okada entered the department of

Western painting The history of Western painting represents a continuous, though disrupted, tradition from classical antiquity, antiquity until the present time. Until the mid-19th century it was primarily concerned with Representational art, representational ...

at Tokyo School of Fine Arts (present Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music). His classmates include Gen'ichirō Inokuma, Takeo Yamaguchi, and Ryōhei Koiso. In 1924, Okada dropped out from Tokyo School of Fine Arts and left for

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

where he studied with fellow Japanese expatriate

Tsuguharu Foujita was a Japanese–French painter and printmaker born in Tokyo, Japan, who applied Japanese ink techniques to Western style paintings. At the height of his fame in Paris, during the 1920s, he was known for his portraits of nudes using an opalescen ...

, executing paintings of urban subjects. In 1927, he exhibited work in the

Salon d'Automne The Salon d'Automne (; en, Autumn Salon), or Société du Salon d'automne, is an art exhibition held annually in Paris, France. Since 2011, it is held on the Champs-Élysées, between the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, in mid-October. The ...

Early career in Japan (1927–1950)

In 1927, Okada returned to

and within a year he had his first one-person show at the Mitsukoshi Department Store in Tokyo. His success continued with a prize in 1936 from the modernist artist association Nika-kai, of which he became a formal member. In 1939, Okada was awarded the Showa Western Painting Encouragement Prize (昭和洋画奨励賞), and in the same year he was invited to teach oil painting at the School of Fine Arts,

Nihon University , abbreviated as , is a private research university in Japan. Its predecessor, Nihon Law School (currently the Department of Law), was founded by Yamada Akiyoshi, the Minister of Justice, in 1889. It is one of Japan's leading private universit ...

with Kinosuke Ebihara and other oil painters. Later, Okada was evacuated to

Miyagi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Miyagi Prefecture has a population of 2,305,596 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Miyagi Prefecture borders Iwate Prefecture to the north, Akita Prefecture to the no ...

. After the war, in 1947, he was awarded the first Nikakai Group Membership Effort Prize (会員努力賞) and attracted attention for his refined, lyrical style. From that year, he taught oil painting at the

Musashino Art University or is a private university in Kodaira, Western Tokyo, founded in 1962 with roots going back to 1929. It is known as one of the leading art universities in Japan. History In October 1929, was founded. In December 1948, it became , and in ...

until 1974 and at

Tama Art University or is a private art university located in Tokyo, Japan. It is known as one of the top art schools in Japan. History The forerunner of Tamabi was Tama Imperial Art School (多摩帝国美術学校, Tama Teikoku Bijutsu Gakkō) founded in 1935. ...

until 1968.

Success as an abstract painter in the United States (1950–1982)

In 1950, Okada moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, where he produced abstract paintings. Undoubtedly stimulated by

abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

, these paintings nevertheless display a strong Japanese sensibility and feeling for form. In 1953, he began to exhibit his abstract expressionist paintings with the

Betty Parsons Betty Parsons (born Betty Bierne Pierson, January 31, 1900 – July 23, 1982) was an American artist, art dealer, and collector known for her early promotion of Abstract Expressionism. She is regarded as one of the most influential and dynamic f ...

Gallery in New York City, and through Parsons, gained access to the inner circle of Abstract Expressionism.Papanikolas, Theresa and Stephen Salel, Stephen, ''Abstract Expressionism, Looking East from the Far West'', Honolulu Museum of Art, 2017, , p. 17 Okada's style and colours, which evoke the aesthetics of traditional Japanese art, were popularised under the name of ''Yugenism'' (ユーゲニズム; 幽玄主義), and he achieved great commercial and critical success as a Japanese-American artist in New York, which became the centre of postwar art at the height of the

movement. At the 29th Venice Biennale in 1958, Okada’s work was exhibited in the Japan Pavilion (representative:

Shūzō Takiguchi was a Japanese poet, art critic, and artist. He was the central figure of orthodox Surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and ...

; assistant commissioner: Ichirō Fukuzawa and Yoshiaki Tōno) alongside that of five other Japanese artists ( Ichirō Fukuzawa,

Kawabata Ryūshi was the pseudonym of a Japanese painter in the ''Nihonga'' style, active during the Taishō and Shōwa eras. His real name was Kawabata Shotarō. Biography He was born in Wakayama city in Wakayama Prefecture. He moved to Tokyo in 1895. ...

Seison Maeda was the art-name of a nihonga painter in the Taishō and Shōwa periods of Japan. His legal name was Maeda Renzō. He is considered one of the greatest contemporary Japanese painters, and one of the leaders of the Nihonga movement. Biography ...

Yoshi Kinouchi Yoshi is a fictional dinosaur who appears in video games published by Nintendo. Yoshi debuted in ''Super Mario World'' (1990) on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as Mario and Luigi's sidekick. Yoshi is the title character of the ''Yoshi ...

Shindō Tsuji Shindo or Shindō may refer to: * *Shindo (religion) (신도), an alternative name of Korean Shamanism used by Shamanic associations in modern South Korea. People *Shindō (surname) Shindō, Shindo or Shindou (written: , , , ) is a Japanese surna ...

), and Okada won Astorre Meyer Prize and UNESCO Prize. His paintings from the 1950s and 1960s reveal subtle changes in the natural world through the use of imagery constructed with delicate, sensitive color tonalities, floating within the compositional space. ''Turn'' from 1962, in the collection of 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 '' Hagoromo'' from 1966, in the Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection, are examples of the artist's tonal abstractions. During the 1970s he painted numerous works that used as a point of departure the reinterpretation of the decorative effects of traditional

Japanese painting is one of the oldest and most highly refined of the Japanese visual arts, encompassing a wide variety of genres and styles. As with the history of Japanese arts in general, the long history of Japanese painting exhibits synthesis and competitio ...

. Okada evokes the aura of landscape by using earth colors, abstract patterns hinting at rocks and flowers, and an overall haziness that makes his scenes look submerged in water. Bringing an Asian sensitivity to the New York School of abstraction, Okada distills the essence of nature into his painting, making it seem elemental and thus sublime. Okada became friends with

Mark Rothko Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Lat ...

and many other abstract expressionists, especially the early color field painters. His sensitive and personal style of abstract expressionism, with his Asian roots, relates directly to both color field painting and

lyrical abstraction Lyrical abstraction is either of two related but distinct trends in Post-war Modernist painting: ''European Abstraction Lyrique'' born in Paris, the French art critic Jean José Marchand being credited with coining its name in 1947, considered ...

. Okada died in Tokyo July 24, 1982.

Legacy

The artist’s widow Okada Kimi donated 95 of the artist’s paintings to

Akita City 'Autumn field' is the capital city of Akita Prefecture, Japan, and has been designated a core city since 1 April 1997. , the city has an estimated population of 305,625, 136,628 households and a population density of 340 persons per km2. The tot ...

in June, 1989. In November, 1989, the Akita Senshu Museum of Art opened the Kenzo Okada Memorial (岡田謙三記念館), the special exhibition room that displays Okada’s oeuvre permanently. In 1997, Okada Kimi donated 152 paintings to the

Kitasato Institute is a private medical university headquartered in Shirokane, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The head of the university is on the Shirokane campus, neighboring the original Kitasato Institute, the first private medical research facility in Japan which wa ...

, Tokyo which now exhibits Okada’s works regularly at its

Kitasato University is a private medical university headquartered in Shirokane, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The head of the university is on the Shirokane campus, neighboring the original Kitasato Institute, the first private medical research facility in Japan which was ...

Medical Center

Ōmura Omura (小村) or Ōmura (大村) are Japanese surnames, but may also refer to: * Ōmura, Nagasaki, a city located in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan * Omura's whale (''Balaenoptera omurai''), a species of rorqual about which very little is known People ...

Memorial Hall (北里大学メディカルセンター大村記念館) in Saitama.

Selected exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

* 1953

Betty Parsons Gallery Betty Parsons (born Betty Bierne Pierson, January 31, 1900 – July 23, 1982) was an American artist, art dealer, and collector known for her early promotion of Abstract Expressionism. She is regarded as one of the most influential and dynamic f ...

, New York * 1955

, New York * 1956

, New York * 1958 Nihonbashi

Takashimaya is a Japanese multinational corporation operating a department store chain carrying a wide array of products, ranging from wedding dresses and other apparel to electronics and flatware. It has more than 12 branches strategically located in 2 ...

Department Store, Tokyo * 1959

, New York * 1962

, New York * 1963 New Gallery, Hayden Library,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...

* 1964

, New York * 1965 ''Kenzo Okada Paintings, 1931–1965'',

, Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, Buffalo * 1966 Nihonbashi

Department Store, Tokyo * 1966–1967 ''Kenzo Okada Paintings, 1952–1965'', the

, the

Honolulu Academy of Arts 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 ...

, the

M.H. de Young Memorial Museum The de Young Museum, formally the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco, California. Located in Golden Gate Park, it is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, along with the Legion of Hono ...

, San Francisco, and the University Art Museum,

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

, Austin * 1967

, New York * 1969

, New York * 1971

, New York * 1973

, New York * 1976

, New York * 1978

, New York * 1982 ''Kenzo Okada'' (岡田謙三展：ニューヨークに花開く幽玄の美), Seibu Museum of Art, Tokyo, and

Fukuoka Art Museum is an art museum in Fukuoka, Japan. It contains a notable collection of Asian art and exhibits various temporary exhibitions. In November 2010 it hosted a large exhibition of Marc Chagall's work. '' The Madonna of Port Lligat'' by Salvador Dalí ...

* 1989 ''Kenzo Okada'' (岡田謙三展), the

, the Meguro Museum of Art, Tokyo, the Gunma Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, the

Ohara Museum of Art The in Kurashiki was the first collection of Western art to be permanently exhibited in Japan. The museum opened in 1930 and originally consisted almost entirely of French paintings and sculptures of the 19th and 20th centuries. The collection h ...

, Kurashiki, the Mie Prefectural Art Museum, the Kure Municipal Museum of Art, and the Akita City Museum of Art * 2000 ''Kenzo Okada: A Retrospective of the American Years 1950–1982'',

, Iowa * 2003 ''Kenzo Okada: A Retrospective'' (生誕100年記念・没後20年: 岡田謙三展),

, the Akita Senshu Museum of Art, the Kobe City Koiso Memorial Museum of Art, and the Joshibi Art Museum, Joshibi Universitu of Art and Design, Sagamihara

Group exhibitions

* 1954 ''Young American Painters'',

, New York * 1955 3rd

São Paulo Biennale SAO or Sao may refer to: Places * Sao civilisation, in Middle Africa from 6th century BC to 16th century AD * Sao, a town in Boussé Department, Burkina Faso * Saco Transportation Center (station code SAO), a train station in Saco, Maine, U.S. ...

* 1958 29th Venice Biennale * 1979 ''Okada, Shinoda, and Tsutaka: Three Pioneers of Abstract Painting in 20th Century Japan'',

The Phillips Collection The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips and Marjorie Acker Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the grandson of James H. Laughlin ...

, Washington, D.C. * 1994－1995 ''Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky'',

, Guggenheim Museum SoHo, and

Major public collections

* Akita Senshu Museum of Art *

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

, Baffalo *

, New York * Bruce Museum, Greenwich *

* Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum *

Indianapolis Museum of Art The Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) is an encyclopedic art museum located at Newfields, a campus that also houses Lilly House, The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park: 100 Acres, the Gardens at Newfields, the Beer Garden, and more. It ...

, Tokyo * Meguro Museum of Art, Tokyo *

Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo The is a contemporary art museum in Koto, Tokyo, Japan. The museum is located in Kiba Park. It was opened in 1995. Collections *''Marilyn Monroe'' by Andy Warhol (1967) *'' Girl with Hair Ribbon'' by Roy Lichtenstein (1965) *''Honey-pop'' by ...

, New York *

Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura & Hayama The is the first public modern art museum in Japan. The museum consists of three halls: Kamakura, Kamakura annex, and Hayama. Outline of halls Kamakura hall (main building) The hall is located in Yukinoshita, Kamakura, Kanagawa prefecture, ...

, Washington, D.C. *

National Museum of Art, Osaka is a subterranean Japanese art museum located on the island of Nakanoshima, located between the Dōjima River and the Tosabori River, about 10 minutes west of Higobashi Station in central Osaka. The official Japanese title of the museum tran ...

National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo The in Tokyo, Japan, is the foremost museum collecting and exhibiting modern Japanese art. This Tokyo museum is also known by the English acronym MOMAT (National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo). The museum is known for its collection of 20th-centu ...

Neuberger Museum of Art Neuberger Museum of Art is located in Purchase, New York, United States. It is affiliated with Purchase College, part of the State University of New York system. It is the nation's tenth-largest university museum. The museum is one of 14 sites ...

, New York *

, Venice *

Phillips Collection The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips and Marjorie Acker Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the grandson of James H. Laughlin ...

, Washington, D.C. *

* Santa Barbara Museum of Art *

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds ...

, Washington, D.C. *

, New York * Sompo Museum of Art, Tokyo * St. Louis Museum of Art *

, New York *

Yale University Art Gallery The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is the oldest university art museum in the Western Hemisphere. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. ...

New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,023 ...

''横浜美術館'' (in Japanese)
Work 1Work 2Work 3Work 4Work 5Work 6Work 7Work 8Work 9Work 10Work 11Work 12Work 13Work 14Work 15Work 16Work 17Work 18Work 19Work 20Work 21Work 22Work 23Work 24
Retrieved 2022-10-21.

External links

Oral history interview with Kenzo Okada, November 22, 1968. Conducted by Forrest Selvig. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Okada, Kenzo 1902 births 1982 deaths 20th-century American painters American male painters American artists of Japanese descent Japanese emigrants to the United States Japanese painters Japanese expatriates in France People from Yokohama 20th-century American male artists

Biography

Early life and education (1902–1927)

Early career in Japan (1927–1950)

Success as an abstract painter in the United States (1950–1982)

Legacy

Selected exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

Group exhibitions

Major public collections

Further reading

External links

References