1970s Japanese Oil Painting on Canvas by Takami Sakurai

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Artist: Sakurai Takami - Japanese (1928-2016)
Title: Invitation to the Paradise ST#11
Year: circa 1972
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Sight … Read more Artist: Sakurai Takami - Japanese (1928-2016)
Title: Invitation to the Paradise ST#11
Year: circa 1972
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Sight size: 18 x 24 inches.
Framed size: 21 x 27 inches
Signature: Unsigned. Label on old frame
Condition: Very good
Frame: Framed in original frame. Frame in poor condition

This oil on canvas is by the noted avant garde Japanese artist Sakurai Takami (1928-2016). It was created sometime between 1971, when Takami lived in San Francisco and was a member of and exhibited with the “Konnyaku Commune” and 1978 when he exhibited with the Vorpal Gallery in San Francisco. This painting was purchased from the Vorpal Gallery. The painting is in very good condition. It is unsigned, but the title is on the side of the metal frame. The frame is fine, but the mat is stained and in poor condition. I will include the frame for protection and provenance.

Sakurai was a main member of the avant-garde art group “Kyushu-ha”.
Kyushu-ha” created a major trend among contemporary art in post-war Japan, which spread from Fukuoka to the whole country and also France, the United States and other overseas countries. Throughout his life he was very dramatic; his enormous and diverse works are energetic and face us with the true meaning of expression. Initially his main focus was on informal paintings, but it gradually expanded towards anti-artistic objects and performances. His works are characterized by the usage of materials that are connected with the smell of a workers life, such as coal tar, asphalt, woven mats and dungarees (jute bag).

Shortly after Kyushu-ha disbanded in 1968, Sakurai Takami moved to San Francisco. From 1973 he lived in France. The people and faces in Sakurai’s paintings are coloured red, so that the colour, a symbol of heat, becomes a “social sign”. Each person has a life of their own, while at the same time expressing the colourful life of human communities, like the hippies.
His theme may be drawing “humanity and the universe” with a loving embrace of “peace” and “life”.

1953 graduated Fukuoka Liberal Arts University
1955 40th Nika Art Exhibition, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum
1956 Persona Exhibition, outer west side of the Fukuoka prefectural office
1957-68 part of Kyushu-ha
1965 went to the United States (~’67)
1970 “Kanousei e no Ishi“ Kitakyushu Hachiman Museum of Art
Kyushu: Trends in Japanese Contemporary Art Exhibition, Fukuoka Bunka Hall
Sakurai Takami solo exhibition, Fukuoka Bunka Hall
went to the United States for the second time, started working with the konyaku commune (San Francisco)
1971 Konyaku Revolution Art Exhibition (San Francisco)
1973 Nagoya mayor nominating election convention, Azabu public hall
moved to France
1974 formed the group “Kusuguri” (Paris)
1975 7th Art Of Our Time Exhibition, Fukuoka Bunka Hall
1975 solo exhibition Gallery Shunju/Tokyo (’79, ’83, ’87, ’88)
1976 solo exhibition Fukuoka Gallery (’77, ’79, ’80)
1977 solo exhibition Yvon Lambert Gallery/Paris (’81, ’82)
1978 Rubin University invitation exhibition
1979 “Sakurai Takami’s small anthology: Kami no Konseki”
1980 Exhibition of Asian Contemporary Art, Fukuoka Art Museum
1982 solo exhibition Gallery DON/Fukuoka
1983 1960s – departure towards diversification, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum
1983 solo exhibition Gallery Robin/Amagi, Fukuoka
1983 solo exhibition Fujikawa Gallery, Fukuoka Store
1984 20 Years of Contemporary Art, The Museum of Modern Art Gunma/Takasaki
1985 solo exhibition Ribu/Kitakyushu
1986 Salon de Mai (~’88)
1986 solo exhibition Junk Gallery/Paris
1987 solo exhibition White Gallery/Fukuoka (~’88)
1987 published “I DISCOVER JESUS CURISTY IS A WOMAN”
1988 Kyushu-ha exhibition ~ anti-art project Fukuoka Art Museum
1995 “Japanese Culture: The Fifty Postwar Years”, Meguro Museum of Art/Tokyo
1998 Realism in Postwar Japan, Nagoya City Art Museum
1998 Fukuoka Bijutsu Sengo Monogatari, Fukuoka Art Museum
2001 Neko ni okasareta Sakurai Takami, Gallery Kaze/Fukuoka
2002 Naïve art, Fukuoka Art Museum
2004-05 Traces: Body and Idea in Contemporary Art
2004 National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto/National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
2005 Kyushu Ryoku – Sekai Bijutsu toshite no Kyushu/Contemporary Art Museum Kumamoto
2006 SAKURAI TAKAMI two people exhibition, Fukuoka Art Museum special exhibition display room B
2007 “Birth of Humanity and the Road to Paradise Series“ Kita Modern Art Museum/Nara
2012-13 “Art Will Thrill You!: The Essence of Modern Japanese Art, Experimental Ground

About Kyushu-Ha
From the late 1950s and early 60s, changes in the art world began to take place both nationally and internationally and a wide variety of art appeared. Around this time various Avant-garde groups were founded in Japan; not only in Tokyo, but various other cities as well.


Young artists dissatisfied with the traditional art system formed a new group and started releasing energetic, experimental works that couldn’t fit into such categories as “painting“ or “sculpting“.
The “Neo Dada“ in Tokyo and the “Gutai“ in Kansai are representative of that time, but above all the “Kyushu-Ha” formed in Fukuoka City is one of the most distinctive groups of that time. “Kyushu-Ha” was formed by Takami Sakurai and Ochi Osamu and it can be said that their characteristic is the approach of looking at artistic expression and everyday activities from the perspective of an ordinary person. In other words, art is brought down to daily reality, and conversly, everyday coarseness is raised to the level of artistic expression.
Most members of Kyushu-Ha did not receive a special art education, which is why they were strongly aware of being ordinary civilians (workers)“, when among „painters“. At the same time the labor union movement represented by Mitsui Miike was on the rise in Fukuoka Prefecture and it seems that their ideology resonated with members of Kyushu- Ha.
The Kyushu-Ha artists used scrap wood and waste, but their most characteristic material is Asphalt. Ochi Osamu discovered this method while working at a publishing company and almost all members of Kyushu-Ha used it. Asphalt was easy to obtain in Fukuoka city, where urbanisation began to advance because it was cheap. Moreover, it had a unique luster and dried quickly. The shiny black colour was associated with Miike’s coal and the energy of workers, who supported the modernisation of Japan, which is why this material became a Kyushu-Ha trademark.
In the beginning of their formation Kyushu-Ha tried to call attention to their existence by frequently holding exhibitions in Tokyo and by holding independent exhibitions to reorganise the local art scene. However, due to the difference in awareness of “Avant- garde” the group experienced a major division at the end of 1959.
Eventhough Sakurai tried to rebuild Kyushu-Ha, due to the ideological background being established on Mitsui Miike’s labor dispute, with the defeat of the union in 1960, Kyushu-Ha itself also lost its energy, and lastly ended their activities by participating in a group exhibition in 1968.
Kyushu-Ha placed more emphasis on the effect and degree of appeal of their work rather than the preservation; there are many works that take the form of actions rather than a solid shape, which is why there are very few still existing art works. Due to this, Kyushu-Ha had been conceiled by a legendary veil for a long time.
In 1988, the “Kyushu-Ha One Anti-Art Project” was held at the Fukuoka Art Museum, and the full story was made public. The “Kyushu-Ha Taizen“ edited by the same museum was published in 2015 and Kyushu-Ha started gathering attention worldwide. See less