Horin Fukuoji1920~2012 福王寺法林

FUKUOJI Horin (real name Fukuoji Yuichi, November 10, 1920 – February 21, 2012) was a Nihonga painter born in Yonezawa, Yamagata Prefecture, who served as a member of the Japan Art Academy and director of the Japan Art Institute. He lost sight in his left eye at age six in 1927, and from 1929 studied Japanese-style painting under Uemura Hirosige before moving to Tokyo in 1936 to pursue his career as a painter. Drafted in 1941 and deployed to the Chinese front, he was taken prisoner in Hong Kong in 1945 and repatriated the following year. From 1974 he began traveling to the Himalayas, fulfilling a childhood dream, and the Himalayas became a central subject of his oeuvre, earning him the Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts in 1977 and the Japan Art Academy Prize in 1984. He was elected a member of the Japan Art Academy in 1994, designated a Person of Cultural Merit in 1998, and awarded the Order of Culture in 2004.