Tatsuhiko Yokoo1928~2015 横尾龍彦

Yokoo Tatsuhiko (1928-2015) was a Japanese painter born in Fukuoka. Raised by a clairvoyant mother, his early mystical experiences profoundly influenced his later work. After graduating from the Nihonga department of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts in 1950, he studied Christian theology, then turned to oil painting in the 1960s; in 1965 he spent a year in Paris on a Cistercian monastery scholarship studying medieval Romanesque and Gothic art. From 1978 he joined Takahashi Iwao’s Rudolf Steiner study group in Kamakura and trained in Zen under Yamada Koun at the Sanun Zendo, gradually shifting from demonic visionary paintings toward an abstract style fusing Eastern meditation and Western mysticism. Working between Japan and Europe, he was internationally recognized for fantastic paintings inspired by scripture and myth.