Kenzo Okada

Kenzo Okada (Japanese冈田 谦 三, Kenzo Okada, born September 29, 1902 in Yokohama, Japan, † July 25, 1982 in Tokyo ) was a long -living and operating in the United States painter of Japanese descent. He was one of the representatives of Abstract Expressionism with Asian character.

Life and work

Kenzo Okada began in 1922 to study in the Department of Western painting at the Art Academy in Tokyo (now the School of Art Tokyo). In 1924 he went to France, where he studied painting for a time on your own along with Tsugouharu Foujita, another Japanese emigrants and paintings created with urban issues. In Paris he also had contact with Alberto Giacometti. In 1927 he returned to Japan, and began to exhibit his art.

In 1950 he moved to New York City, where he began the abstract painting. His art was indeed strongly influenced by Abstract Expressionism, but still showed a strong Japanese sensibility and a special Asian feeling for form and detail.

His paintings from the 1950s show subtle changes in the reproduction of the natural world through the use of delicate, sensitive colors. In 1953 he began his exhibitions of abstract expressionist paintings at the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York City. In 1964 he took part in documenta III in Kassel in the painting department.

In the 1970s he painted many works that are considered to be the starting point of a new interpretation of the decorative effects of traditional Japanese painting. In Okada's paintings an interpretation of a sort of aura of landscapes is generated, he creates mainly with earth colors and abstract patterns that suggest rocks and flowers. The images are displayed in a blur that they act like a view through the water.

Okada was a friend of Mark Rothko and other abstract expressionists. His sensitive and personal style of abstract expressionism with its Asian roots, makes his painting of the Lyric abstraction belonging.

Literature and sources

• Documenta III. International Exhibition; Catalogue: Volume 1: Paintings and Sculpture; Volume 2: Hand drawings; Volume 3: Industrial design, graphic; Kassel / Cologne 1964
• Shuji Takashina: Okada, Shinoda, and Tsukata: Three Pioneers of Abstract Painting in 20th Century Japan, Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, USA 1979