Komei Kondo1924~2015 近藤弘明

Kondo Komei was a nihonga (Japanese-style) painter born on September 14, 1924, into a Tendai Buddhist family in the Shitaya district of Tokyo. He learned Buddhist painting from his father in childhood, and in 1943 entered the Japanese painting department of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts (now Tokyo University of the Arts), where he studied under Yamamoto Kyujin. He exhibited primarily through the Sogakai (Creative Painting Association) and won numerous awards in Japan and abroad, earning a reputation as a "painter of fantasy" for works expressing a unique worldview rooted in Buddhist thought. In 1976, at age 52, he moved his studio to Itabashi in Odawara, naming it "Jakuseikyo" (Quiet Dwelling). He died on September 13, 2015, at age 90; in 2016 about 160 works were donated to the city of Odawara.