Lot Essay
In the 1960s, Saito Yoshishige, one of the leading figures of Japanese contemporary art, created distinctively gouged and drilled abstractions. The dramatically intense red of this painting of the period and the off-kilter forms compressed within the composition's boundaries, create a painting of assertive and immediate presence. The style of this work, first developed by Saito in the 1930s, features layer upon layer of pigment and the application of painted wood directly to the picture's surface. When they first appeared these pieces baffled and challenged Saito's audience, as they seemed neither painting or sculpture.
Born in 1904 Saito began to work with oil paint as a junior high school student under the influence of Nakashino Toshio (1900-1948). An exhibition of the Italian Futurists held in Tokyo at this time broadened his outlook and, several years later, Saito joined an avant-garde, western-style painting center in Surugadai, where he studied with Koga Harue (1895-1933) and Togo Seiji (1897-1976). In 1936 he began to exhibit regularly and, in 1939, he helped establish the Bijutsu Bunka Kyokai, an artists' cultural society with which he remained affiliated until 1953. He moved to Urayasu in Chiba Prefecture in 1954. The same year Work no. 1 in the exhibition New Artists of Today established Saito's reputation amongst abstract painters. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1960 and in 1961 Work no. 10 (sold in these Rooms in Sale no. 7486, Arpil 22, 1992, lot 143) won the International painting award at the Sao Paulo Biennale. Another of his paintings, Untitled (red) of 1962 (Sold in these Rooms on April 27, 1994 in the sale of Contemporary Japanese Art from the Estate of Blanchette H. Rockefeller, lot 24, Sale no. 7898) was included in a seminal traveling exhibition The New Japanese Painting and Sculpture organized by the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1965. Held in eight museums in the United States from 1965-1967 this exhibition confirmed Saito's stature as an internationally acclaimed artist.
A Professor of Fine Art at Tama Art College, Saito influenced the next generation of important figures in contemporary Japanese art. Upon his retirement from teaching in 1973 he traveled in Europe where he had several one-man and two-man exhibitions. He also began to reconstruct his lost paintings of the late 1930s and early 1940s, paintings that had been destroyed during the war. Two major retrospectives of his work have been held, the first, Yoshishige Saito at the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo in 1978 and the second, Yoshishige Saito -- Time, Space, Wood at the Yokohama Museum of Art and the Tokushima Modern Art Museum, in 1993. Other major exhibitions are Yoshishige Saito at the Kanagawa Prefectural Gallery in 1977, the Saito Yoshishige Exhibition 1984 organized by the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, the Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Modern Art, Hyogo, the Fukui Prefectural Museum of Art and the Ohara Museum of Art. Saito was awarded the Asahi Prize in 1984 and in 1986 his paintings were included in Japon des Avant-Gardes 1910-1970, at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. In 1989 Saito and another major figure of Japanese abstraction Yamaguchi Takeo (1902-1983), exhibited at the Musee d'Art Moderne in Brussels as part of Europalia 89.
Born in 1904 Saito began to work with oil paint as a junior high school student under the influence of Nakashino Toshio (1900-1948). An exhibition of the Italian Futurists held in Tokyo at this time broadened his outlook and, several years later, Saito joined an avant-garde, western-style painting center in Surugadai, where he studied with Koga Harue (1895-1933) and Togo Seiji (1897-1976). In 1936 he began to exhibit regularly and, in 1939, he helped establish the Bijutsu Bunka Kyokai, an artists' cultural society with which he remained affiliated until 1953. He moved to Urayasu in Chiba Prefecture in 1954. The same year Work no. 1 in the exhibition New Artists of Today established Saito's reputation amongst abstract painters. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1960 and in 1961 Work no. 10 (sold in these Rooms in Sale no. 7486, Arpil 22, 1992, lot 143) won the International painting award at the Sao Paulo Biennale. Another of his paintings, Untitled (red) of 1962 (Sold in these Rooms on April 27, 1994 in the sale of Contemporary Japanese Art from the Estate of Blanchette H. Rockefeller, lot 24, Sale no. 7898) was included in a seminal traveling exhibition The New Japanese Painting and Sculpture organized by the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1965. Held in eight museums in the United States from 1965-1967 this exhibition confirmed Saito's stature as an internationally acclaimed artist.
A Professor of Fine Art at Tama Art College, Saito influenced the next generation of important figures in contemporary Japanese art. Upon his retirement from teaching in 1973 he traveled in Europe where he had several one-man and two-man exhibitions. He also began to reconstruct his lost paintings of the late 1930s and early 1940s, paintings that had been destroyed during the war. Two major retrospectives of his work have been held, the first, Yoshishige Saito at the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo in 1978 and the second, Yoshishige Saito -- Time, Space, Wood at the Yokohama Museum of Art and the Tokushima Modern Art Museum, in 1993. Other major exhibitions are Yoshishige Saito at the Kanagawa Prefectural Gallery in 1977, the Saito Yoshishige Exhibition 1984 organized by the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, the Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Modern Art, Hyogo, the Fukui Prefectural Museum of Art and the Ohara Museum of Art. Saito was awarded the Asahi Prize in 1984 and in 1986 his paintings were included in Japon des Avant-Gardes 1910-1970, at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. In 1989 Saito and another major figure of Japanese abstraction Yamaguchi Takeo (1902-1983), exhibited at the Musee d'Art Moderne in Brussels as part of Europalia 89.