Kazuo Nanjo1900~1986 南城一夫

Kazuo Nanjo (1900-1986) was a Japanese Western-style painter born in Maebashi, Gunma Prefecture. After graduating from the former Maebashi Middle School, he studied at Saburosuke Okada's Hongo Painting Research Institute and entered the Western Painting Department of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts in 1920. From 1924 to 1937 he lived in France, where he studied with Roger Bissiere and Andre Lhote and steeped himself in European modernist painting before being forced to return to Japan due to the war. He exhibited at the Shun'yokai exhibition in 1939 and became a member in 1940, developing a refined style with a distinctly Western flavor. A major retrospective "Kazuo Nanjo Exhibition" was held at the Museum of Modern Art, Gunma in 1981.