Yuko Nasaka1938~ 名坂有子

NASAKA Yuko, born in 1938 in Osaka, is a contemporary Japanese artist regarded as one of the leading figures of the second generation of the avant-garde Gutai Art Association. After graduating from Shoin Women’s University in 1959, she received the Mayor’s Prize at the Ashiya City Exhibition in 1962, studied under Gutai’s founder Yoshihara Jiro, and joined the association in 1963. Her 1964 solo show at Gutai Pinacotheca presented monumental wall works composed of concentric-circle panels created on a rotating board, attracting international attention. She designed the dome pattern of Government Pavilion No. 4 at Expo ’70 in Osaka and remained active until Gutai’s dissolution in 1972. After a long hiatus, she resumed her career around 2014 with solo exhibitions in Tokyo and, in 2015, in Antwerp, Belgium, and is now reassessed as a key female voice of postwar Japanese avant-garde art.