Kenzo Okada

Kenzo Okada was born in Yokohama, Japan, on September 28, 1902, to an affluent family. At a young age he wanted to become a painter, although his father, a successful industrialist, urged him to pursue a more practical career. In 1922 he enrolled at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, but just two years later his fascination with Western art movements led him to Paris, where he briefly studied with the Japanese artist Foujita Tsuguharu (Léonard Foujita) and exhibited in the 1927 Salon d'Automne. On Okada's return to Japan that year, his work received favorable critical response, resulting in his first solo exhibition at the Galerie Nichido, Tokyo, in 1929, where he continued to exhibit until 1935. In 1936 the group Nika-kai (Second-Section Society), the largest association of Japanese contemporary artists, awarded him a prestigious prize. He also had a number of teaching posts in Japanese universities, including the School of Fine Arts, Nippon University; Musashino Art Institute; and the Tama Fine Arts College, all Tokyo.

Okada continued to paint in a Western figurative tradition, particularly impressionistic landscapes, for the next 20 years while in Japan. After World War II, however, Okada felt dissatisfied with the Japanese contemporary art scene and left for New York in 1950. There he met Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still, as well as other artists associated with what would later become known as Abstract Expressionism. His geographical move also marked a decisive shift toward abstraction, although he never entirely abandoned figuration. For Okada the binary opposition between figuration and abstraction was irrelevant, a product of a Western mind-set, yet he insisted that Abstract Expressionism's emphasis on the subconscious became a conduit for his exploration of his cultural heritage.

Specific elements of Japanese culture, such as 17th-century screen painting, Zen Buddhism, and ancient No theater, are prominent in his postwar paintings. The influence of nature can be seen in his delicate and subdued palette, as in the earth tones of Decision (1956), as well as in his process. He often used natural materials such as rocks and sticks to help visualize and structure his compositions. In the 1960s critics drew comparisons between his allover paintings and the work of Color Field artists such as Helen Frankenthaler and Jules Olitski. He became a U.S. citizen in 1960.

Okada found early success in New York, receiving his first one-person show at Betty Parsons Gallery (1953) and continued to exhibit there throughout his life. Solo exhibitions also took place at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (1955); São Paulo Biennial (as U.S. representative, 1955); Fairweather Hardin Gallery, Chicago (1956); Japanese Pavilion, Venice Biennale (1958); Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles (1959); Yayoi Gallery, Tokyo (1961); and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Museum, Cambridge (1963). He also received a number of international awards, including the Annual Art Prize from the Art Institute of Chicago (1954); International Prize at the Pittsburgh International (now Carnegie International, 1955); Astorre Meyer Prize at the Venice Biennale (1958); and Art Prize from the Ford Foundation (1960). Okada was the subject of a traveling retrospective at the Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, New York (1965), and a retrospective shown at the Seibu Museum of Art, Tokyo, and the Fukuoka Art Museum, Japan (1982). Okada died on July 25, 1982, in Tokyo.