HASEGAWA SABURO [SABRO] (1906-1957)

Details
HASEGAWA SABURO [SABRO] (1906-1957)

Symphonic poem - Fine day

Signed on label on reverse Sabro Hasegawa, titled Symphonic Poem Fine Day., and dated 1951--block-applied ink on paper, 4-panel screen
51 x 25in. (129.5 x 63.5cm.), each panel
Provenance
Yoshinobu Masuda, Japan
Exhibited
Fujii Daimaru Department Store, Kyoto, Nov. 1951; Osaka, Nov.-Dec. 1951; The New Gallery, New York, Hasegawa, Jan. 1953.

Lot Essay

Hasegawa Sabro was born in Yamaguchi Prefecture. A western-style painter, he attended Tokyo Imperial University where he studied art history. Following graduation he joined an artist's association in Osaka called the Western Painting Research Group and in 1929 he traveled to Italy, England, and Spain to study Italian Renaissance art. He also spent time in the United States during this period and was influenced by the most recent theoretical and plastic developments taking place in modern art. In France in 1930, he exhibited in the Salon d'Automne in Paris.

Upon his return to Japan in 1932, Hasegawa organized exhibitions of the New Era Western Painting artists' society. He had both group and one-man shows of his work with this cultural association. In 1937 he co-founded the Free Artists' Association along with Murai Masanari (b. 1905), Yamaguchi Kaoru (1907-68), and Hamaguchi Yozo (b. 1909), a cooperative of artists working in the abstract movement.

With his friend and colleague Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988), Hasegawa was influential in the introduction of avant-garde Japanese art to the West. In 1953 he exhibited in New York City and lectured on Eastern art and Zen Buddhism at the Far Eastern Cultural Research Center in San Francisco. In March 1954 he participated in a panel discussion called Abstract Art Around the World Today at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The panel consisted of Hasegawa, Josef Albers, Alfred H. Barr, Franz Kline, George L. K. Morris, and Aline Saarinen. Hasegawa published several books including Abstract Art, Modern Art, and The New Form of Beauty. In 1956 Hasegawa was visiting professor at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, and at the American Academy of Asian Studies in San Francisco.

The work of Hasegawa Sabro reflects his life-long interest in Buddhist studies and his admiration of Sesshu (1420-1506) the great master of ink painting who was also a Zen priest. In 1951 Hasegawa wrote "It has been my dream for a long time to draw by sumi (black China ink) on white paper, and it was only last year when it became possible for me to actually try this. I do believe that my study and experience on Zazen (a religious and abstract meditation), Haiku (poem) and Sado (tea ceremony) and finding by myself what the simplicity and the abstractive beauties are in the (sic) Oriental art, had a lot to do to (sic) my recent works."

In 1957 there was a memorial exhibition of his work at the Willard Gallery in New York City.