Sugai Kumi was a native of Kobe in Hyogo Prefecture. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Osaka and in 1952 made Paris his permanent home. Personal and engaging, Sugai's gestural paintings of the 1950s and 1960s introduce forms that the artist increasingly simplified and refined throughout his career, culminating in the geometric, hard-edge abstraction of his later paintings.

Another painting by Sugai Kumi sold in these Rooms, November 2, 1996, lot 485.