Takeo Yamaguchi1902~1983 山口長男

Yamaguchi Takeo was a Western-style painter born in 1902 in Keijo (present-day Seoul) and is regarded as a pioneer of abstract painting in Japan. He studied under Okada Saburosuke at the Hongo Yoga Kenkyusho, graduated from the Tokyo School of Fine Arts in 1927, and went to France, where he was influenced by Picasso, Braque, Saeki Yuzo and the sculptor Ossip Zadkine. After returning to Japan in 1931 he exhibited at the Nika exhibitions and in 1938 helped found the Kyushitsu-kai avant-garde group with Yoshihara Jiro. In the postwar years he developed a distinctive abstract style of simple forms in earth and reddish-brown tones, becoming a professor at Musashino Art University in 1954 and head of Musashino Art Gakuen in 1982. He received the Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts in 1961 and died in 1983.