18 Facts About Kenzo Okada

Kenzo Okada was a Japanese-born American painter and the first Japanese-American artist working in the Abstract Expressionist style to receive international acclaim.

Kenzo Okada's work has been featured in retrospective exhibitions since the 1960s, including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in 1965, the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto in 1966, the Seibu Museum of Art, Tokyo in 1982, the Museum of Modern Art, Toyama in 1989, the University of Iowa Museum of Art in 2000, and the Yokohama Museum of Art in 2003.

When his father died, Kenzo Okada entered the department of Western painting at Tokyo School of Fine Arts.

Kenzo Okada's classmates include Gen'ichiro Inokuma, Takeo Yamaguchi, and Ryohei Koiso.

In 1924, Kenzo Okada dropped out from Tokyo School of Fine Arts and left for Paris where he studied with fellow Japanese expatriate Tsuguharu Foujita, executing paintings of urban subjects.

In 1927, Kenzo Okada returned to Japan and within a year he had his first one-person show at the Mitsukoshi Department Store in Tokyo.

Thereafter, Kenzo Okada's works were displayed in the Second Section Exhibition every year.

Kenzo Okada became popular in the Second Section Society for his luscious portraits of women and landscapes of French cityscapes.

Kenzo Okada's success continued and he was awarded the Showa Western Painting Encouragement Prize in 1939.

Kenzo Okada himself later suggested that the reason behind this stylistic change was a sense of powerlessness and mistrust of his own skills and techniques, which he had developed up to that point.

Kenzo Okada became aware of the deadlock in his own creation and sought a change in the environment, which led him to the US in 1950.

Later Kenzo Okada recalled that at first he could not understand Abstract Expressionism at all.

Kenzo Okada was rather confused by the works he saw, and spent nearly three years after his arrival in the US in a state of uncertainty.

Kenzo Okada became friends with Rothko, Newman, and many other Abstract Expressionists.

At the 29th Venice Biennale in 1958, Kenzo Okada's work was exhibited in the Japan Pavilion alongside that of five other Japanese artists, and Kenzo Okada won Astorre Meyer Prize and UNESCO Prize.

Kenzo Okada evokes the aura of landscape by using earth colors, abstract patterns hinting at rocks and flowers, and an overall haziness that makes his scenes look submerged in water.

The artist's widow Kenzo Okada Kimi donated 95 of the artist's paintings to Akita City in June, 1989.

In 1997, Kenzo Okada Kimi donated 152 paintings to the Kitasato Institute, Tokyo which now exhibits Kenzo Okada's works regularly at its Kitasato University Medical Center Omura Memorial Hall in Saitama.