This work, painted across a large, framed, size 30 canvas, features alternating strips of Kazuki Yasuo’s characteristic carbon black and yellow ocher hues. The artist has written “Dawn, New York” on the canvas frame, so it seems the picture depicts a sunrise he witnessed in the great metropolis. In September 1966, Kazuki visited New York at the invitation of the city’s Japan Society. He then travelled around Boston and Niagara before returning to Japan at the end of the year via Paris and Zurich. This work is apparently based on sketches made during this trip. According to Kazuki’s chronology, he submitted a size 30 work titled Dawn to a solo exhibition held at Formes Gallery in 1968. This is probably that painting. The exhibition also featured West End Ave. and Hudson River, two other works themed around New York.

Kazuki also had a strong preference for vertical compositions based on certain traditions in Eastern painting, as exemplified by hanging scrolls. This method of demarcating an elongated screen using layered strips of color is often found in Kazuki’s works, whether they feature landscapes, human figures or still lives. In his landscapes, the technique emphasizes differences in height and depth while hinting at a world stretching out horizontally beyond the canvas. This painting also radiates a sense of altitude, as if the viewer is gazing out from a plane flying above the city at sunrise.

Kazuki Yasuo (yoga painter; 1911–1974)
Yamaguchi-born yoga painter. Graduated from Tokyo School of Fine Arts. Studied under Fujishima Takeji. The unique texture resulted from the mixed media of calcite and charcoal powder becomes his unusual style. Widely known for the “Siberia series” based on his Siberian Internment experience. Awarded the Shin-bunten special prize, Kokuga-kai special prize, Nishinihon bunka-sho (West Japan cultural prize), and the Japan Art Award from Shincho Arts Promotion. Received the Third Order of the Sacred Treasure.