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Lot Essay
AN ARTIST FOLLOWING ADE TERMINED PATH
In his quest to bring Impressionism to utmost perfection, one could say Chuta Kimura was following a lonely path against the wave of 20th Century modern abstraction. Born in 1917 in Takamatsu, Japan, Kimura dove into art at a very early age. His art studies introduced him to Western painting movements such as Impressionism and Fauvism. His work gained early recognition, and he started exhibiting in 1936, before he was drafted for the war and sent to China. He moved to Tokyo after the war, in 1946, exposing himself to new paintings by a personally inspiring artist: Pierre Bonnard. Following his heart, his wife and him moved permanently to France in 1954, where he could further develop his unique vision of "Spiritual Impressionism". The Parisian Galerie Kriegel organized many solo exhibitions around his work in the 1960's and 1970's, and his work expanded across international borders in the 1980s, when he was represented by Galerie Krugier in Geneva and entered the Phillips Collection in the USA.
A CONFIDENT VISIONARY OF LIGHT, SPACE, AND TIME
Chuta Kimura can be considered as the essence of being an Artist, radiating a true understanding of the Artist's mission in the relationship between Humanity and Nature. It is with his disregard for all things secondary that Kimura could truly unite with nature and reveal light. Overstepping the barriers of language to express his inner self, he confidently draws from both his Eastern and Western backgrounds to develop a painting process and a unique aesthetic. He uses natural landscapes as an inspiration to create spaces of color across the composition, but also overlapping with time.
This season, Christie's is pleased to offer a beautiful selection of Kimura's works. Landscape (Lot 636) is a beautiful example of the artist's practice of Impressionist technique and demonstrates a fluid transition from pointillism to longer strokes of color building the landscape, skillfully suggesting the artist's signature style. Morning in the Village (Lot 635) and August (Lot 634) were both painted a few years only before the artist's death in 1987. The artist's confident hand masterfully enables color planes and other elements to appear and disappear in time and space, creating a dialogue between light and shade, and revealing a mosaic of the artist's introspective visual senses.
In his quest to bring Impressionism to utmost perfection, one could say Chuta Kimura was following a lonely path against the wave of 20th Century modern abstraction. Born in 1917 in Takamatsu, Japan, Kimura dove into art at a very early age. His art studies introduced him to Western painting movements such as Impressionism and Fauvism. His work gained early recognition, and he started exhibiting in 1936, before he was drafted for the war and sent to China. He moved to Tokyo after the war, in 1946, exposing himself to new paintings by a personally inspiring artist: Pierre Bonnard. Following his heart, his wife and him moved permanently to France in 1954, where he could further develop his unique vision of "Spiritual Impressionism". The Parisian Galerie Kriegel organized many solo exhibitions around his work in the 1960's and 1970's, and his work expanded across international borders in the 1980s, when he was represented by Galerie Krugier in Geneva and entered the Phillips Collection in the USA.
A CONFIDENT VISIONARY OF LIGHT, SPACE, AND TIME
Chuta Kimura can be considered as the essence of being an Artist, radiating a true understanding of the Artist's mission in the relationship between Humanity and Nature. It is with his disregard for all things secondary that Kimura could truly unite with nature and reveal light. Overstepping the barriers of language to express his inner self, he confidently draws from both his Eastern and Western backgrounds to develop a painting process and a unique aesthetic. He uses natural landscapes as an inspiration to create spaces of color across the composition, but also overlapping with time.
This season, Christie's is pleased to offer a beautiful selection of Kimura's works. Landscape (Lot 636) is a beautiful example of the artist's practice of Impressionist technique and demonstrates a fluid transition from pointillism to longer strokes of color building the landscape, skillfully suggesting the artist's signature style. Morning in the Village (Lot 635) and August (Lot 634) were both painted a few years only before the artist's death in 1987. The artist's confident hand masterfully enables color planes and other elements to appear and disappear in time and space, creating a dialogue between light and shade, and revealing a mosaic of the artist's introspective visual senses.