20 Facts About Masunobu Yoshimura

Masunobu Yoshimura, was a Japanese visual and conceptual artist associated with the Neo-Dada movement.

Masunobu Yoshimura was born on May 22,1932, in Oita on the southern island of Kyushu, the 9th son of his parents, who ran a pharmacy.

In 1951, Masunobu Yoshimura failed the entrance examination to enter the Tokyo University of the Arts and instead enrolled in Musashino Art University in Tokyo, graduating with a specialization in oil painting in 1955.

In 1952 while he as still a college student, Masunobu Yoshimura began earning money by giving painting lessons to children, which he continued doing until 1960.

In 1955, Masunobu Yoshimura began exhibiting artworks at the raucous and non-ideological Yomiuri Independant Exhibition.

In 1957, Masunobu Yoshimura used his inheritance from his father to purchase a small piece of land in the Shinjuku neighborhood of Tokyo.

Masunobu Yoshimura commissioned his friend, the architect Arata Isozaki, to design a combination art studio and residence there.

Masunobu Yoshimura began inviting his old artist friends from Oita, as well as other younger artists he had met at the Yomiuri Independant, to hang out at his atelier, which would become the center of activities for the art collective Neo-Dada Organizers in 1960.

In both 1959 and 1960, Masunobu Yoshimura's artworks were awarded third prize in the annual Shell Art Awards Exhibition in Tokyo.

In October 1960, five female dancers from the Nobutoshi Tsuda Dance Studio in Meguro visited the White House, and Masunobu Yoshimura shocked everyone by suddenly proposing to and marrying one of them, Midori Ishizaki.

In 1962, Masunobu Yoshimura sold his White House atelier and decamped to New York City.

In 1966, Masunobu Yoshimura held a solo exhibition at Castellane Gallery called "HOW TO FLY," at which he pioneered light art by exhibiting works constructed out of illuminated light bulbs.

Masunobu Yoshimura hoped to stay in New York, where his career was going extremely well and he was garnering increased international attention, but in 1966 he was forced to return to Japan when he proved unable to renew his visa.

In 1970, Masunobu Yoshimura was heavily involved in designing large-scale artworks for display at a number of facilities in Expo '70 in Osaka.

In 1971 Masunobu Yoshimura exhibited his work "Pig=Pig Rib" using stuffed pigs at the 10th Contemporary Japanese Art Exhibition.

From 1975 to 1979, Masunobu Yoshimura served as secretary general of the newly formed Artists Union, working to promote the independence and welfare of artists in Japan, but in 1979 the organization collapsed and was dissolved.

Mentally and emotionally exhausted, Masunobu Yoshimura withdrew to the mountains near Hadano, Kanagawa, where he set up a small atelier far from the center of Japan's art scene in Tokyo.

Masunobu Yoshimura died of multiple organ failure on March 15,2011.

Many of Masunobu Yoshimura's artworks are held in the Oita City Art Museum and the Oita Prefectural Art Museum.

Some artworks Masunobu Yoshimura produced while living in New York are held by MoMA.