Yamada Masaaki, a self-taught painter who is committed himself thoroughly to painting after the war, left behind over 5,000 pieces of work throughout his life. Yamada’s artistic career could be categorized by three phases: the first phase, “Still Life” series, is to work on depicting still life between 1948 and 1955; “Work” series as a second phase, starting from 1956, is to focus on a form of linear stripe or cross which resulted from the experiments on transforming the dismantled motif during his first phase. The third phase “Color” series, beginning in the latter of 1990s, is to layer a single paint onto the surface. The present work, executed in 1963, was grouped into “C,” indicative of the 1960s, in “Work” series; due to the note on the back of the frame, it was numbered 132. It was composed by the horizontal, repeated colors of yellow ochre, green, blue, vermilion, and others. The navy paint was somewhat visible between the lines. In the following year, Yamada shifted the style onto keeping two or three colors at most in one work.
Ad Reinhardt, an American abstract painter who was a major influence on minimal art in the 1960s, was surprised at the achievement that Yamada had already created the similar style of works as early as the 1950s, during his travel to Japan in 1966. Yamada left 2,000 pages production notes in total, in which the process of creation and the composition analysis are documented in detail. Those notes convey his dynamitic, experimental mind hidden under the minimalist appearance.
Yamada Masaaki (yoga painter; 1929−2010)
Tokyo-born yoga painter. Studied under Hasegawa Saburo and exhibited frequently at the Japan Independent Exhibition and Jiyu bijutsu-ten. Started with deconstructing still life paintings, and worked on abstract expression which concentrates on flatness of paintings. His style shifted from a pattern of irregular forms, through consisting of rectangles and multicolored stripes, to lattice pattern with layers of strong brushwork. In his later years, established unicolored works with a touch of brush and color superimpositions.