Attributed to Kumi SUGAÏ

Exhibited by Joost van den Bergh

Material Mixed media on paper

Dimensions 50.7 × 41.7 cm

Place of Creation Japan

Status Vetted

About the Work

Sugai Kumi was a leading figure of the postwar Japanese abstraction movement. Born in Kobe, he trained briefly in Western-style painting at the Osaka School of Fine Arts, then began his career designing advertising posters for a railway company, an experience that shaped the graphic quality of his work. After becoming aquainted with Yoshihara Jiro (who would later found the Gutai Art Association), Sugai began to develop an experimental approach alongside his

interest in classical Japanese painting (nihon-ga) and calligraphy.

In 1952 Sugai moved to Paris, where he enrolled at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and developed a style combining abstract gesture and calligraphic brushwork, influenced by Art Informel and Zen-inspired discipline. By the late 1950s, his work had shifted towards compositions featuring geometric forms, sharply articulated motifs and saturated colours, although pieces like Kemono belong to a period during which Sugai’s imagery retained organic, painterly gestures.

From the 1960s onwards, Sugai’s work appeared regularly in solo and group exhibitions in Japan, Europe and the United States. He represented Japan at the 31st Venice Biennale in 1962, receiving the David E. Bright Foundation Prize. His work is now held in collections including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.

Show moreless