Katsura Yuki (1913–1991)
Work
Oil and paper on wood board, framed
73 x 73 cm
77 x 77 cm (overall)
Katsura Yuki began in 1964 to paint on wooden board, but since this is a purely abstract composition it must date to around 1960–61. Katsura stayed in Europe and the United States from 1956 to 1961, when she returned to Japan. Considering this, it seems likely the work was created during the artist’s time abroad and mounted on plywood panel around 1964, when she began using that material. With its horizontal and vertical lines running over its surface, the present work appears to harbor life itself. Katsura layers slips of paper over the wood panel, creating sort of a relief on its surface and adding color that seems to reflect the light.
The work is a square no. 20 format. The motif consists of eight vertical and six horizontal stripes in front of a dark background that appears to be black, but upon closer inspection reveal accents of blue here and there, lending the work a sense of spatial depth.
Work follows a similar approach like other efforts of 1961, including Foreigner (Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art), Work (BNS Niigata Hoso) and Work (Takamatsu Art Museum). During that time Katsura ventured into pure abstract art, a field that she hadn’t touched upon before. On April 30, 1961, she left the United States, returning to Japan after passing through Arizona, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Hawaii. In the same year, from June 26 to July 8, her solo exhibition was held at Tokyo Gallery, including the aforementioned Work from the BNS and Work from the Takamatsu collections. Foreigner was shown at the Sixth Japan International Art Exhibition, opening on May 10. These paintings, all of them likely made while in the United States, have in common that the artist pasted paper slips on the painting ground, using the resulting wrinkles in the glued paper as its own expressive means. Yet, the wrinkles the artist is showing remained, so to speak, no more than outward form.
The present work elevates mere form to artistic expression. But in the midst of returning to representational painting, Katsura would use it as well on works like Last Spurt (Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art, permanent loan), where this “expression” reappears on the left arm, face and two different shades of skin of the creature shown.
Still, Work was created as pure abstraction. The square format is unusual for Katsura’s paintings. It is different from her other works where one of the pleasures of the viewer consists in discovering what the artist actually had painted. But as an early work employing a collage-like technique it is an achievement in its own right.
Katsura Yuki (painter; 1913–1991)
Painter from Tokyo. Katsura studied nihonga with Ikegami Shuho since her school days at a girls-only school. She later studied oil painting with Nakamura Ken’ichi and Okada Saburosuke, and joined the Avant-garde Western Painting Studio under Togo Seiji and Fujita Tsuguharu. Katsura’s first solo exhibition of collage works was held in 1935. Apart of collage, she also worked with oil painting, print and installations. She joined the Nikakai organization and was one of their jury members, but separated from the Nikakai later. Katsura was involved in founding Room Nine art group and the Women Artists Association. She also illustrated and wrote children’s books. Katsura won the First Prize at the Seventh Contemporary Art Exhibition of Japan in 1966 and received the Mainichi Culture Award.
The work is a square no. 20 format. The motif consists of eight vertical and six horizontal stripes in front of a dark background that appears to be black, but upon closer inspection reveal accents of blue here and there, lending the work a sense of spatial depth.
Work follows a similar approach like other efforts of 1961, including Foreigner (Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art), Work (BNS Niigata Hoso) and Work (Takamatsu Art Museum). During that time Katsura ventured into pure abstract art, a field that she hadn’t touched upon before. On April 30, 1961, she left the United States, returning to Japan after passing through Arizona, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Hawaii. In the same year, from June 26 to July 8, her solo exhibition was held at Tokyo Gallery, including the aforementioned Work from the BNS and Work from the Takamatsu collections. Foreigner was shown at the Sixth Japan International Art Exhibition, opening on May 10. These paintings, all of them likely made while in the United States, have in common that the artist pasted paper slips on the painting ground, using the resulting wrinkles in the glued paper as its own expressive means. Yet, the wrinkles the artist is showing remained, so to speak, no more than outward form.
The present work elevates mere form to artistic expression. But in the midst of returning to representational painting, Katsura would use it as well on works like Last Spurt (Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art, permanent loan), where this “expression” reappears on the left arm, face and two different shades of skin of the creature shown.
Still, Work was created as pure abstraction. The square format is unusual for Katsura’s paintings. It is different from her other works where one of the pleasures of the viewer consists in discovering what the artist actually had painted. But as an early work employing a collage-like technique it is an achievement in its own right.
Katsura Yuki (painter; 1913–1991)
Painter from Tokyo. Katsura studied nihonga with Ikegami Shuho since her school days at a girls-only school. She later studied oil painting with Nakamura Ken’ichi and Okada Saburosuke, and joined the Avant-garde Western Painting Studio under Togo Seiji and Fujita Tsuguharu. Katsura’s first solo exhibition of collage works was held in 1935. Apart of collage, she also worked with oil painting, print and installations. She joined the Nikakai organization and was one of their jury members, but separated from the Nikakai later. Katsura was involved in founding Room Nine art group and the Women Artists Association. She also illustrated and wrote children’s books. Katsura won the First Prize at the Seventh Contemporary Art Exhibition of Japan in 1966 and received the Mainichi Culture Award.