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Artwork photographs by Adam Reich
YUICHI INOUE 井上有一
Born in 1916 in Tokyo, Japan
Died in 1985 in Tokyo, Japan
Avant-garde painter Yuichi Inoue was a transformative artist of 20th Century Japan who pioneered action painting and abstraction in calligraphy during Japan’s post-war years. Revered for his expressive single-character paintings which explore the depth and emotions of one word such as 花 (Hana), also the name of the artist’s eldest daughter, Inoue painted with a variety of ink-laden tools with which he beat and splashed paper. This union of traditional calligraphy with experimental creation catapulted Inoue to an international stage, where he has become one of the most widely exhibited and recognized Japanese artists of the modern era.
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2016
A Centennial Exhibition Inoue Yuichi (21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa)
2012
Inoue Yuichi: Painting with all of One’s Heart and the Avantgarde Art of Calligraphy (Karuizawa New Art Museum, Nagano)
1995
Yu-Ichi 1916-1985 (Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland)
1989
Yu-Ichi Works 1955-85 (National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto)
1987
Yu-Ichi’s Hundred Hana (Parco Gallery, Tokyo)
1986
Yu-Ichi Vivant (Seed Hall, Tokyo)
1965
YU-ICHI Calligraphien (Wuppertal Kunst und Museumseverein, Wuppertal, Germany)
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2019
Sumi: Japanese Ink Painting From Post-War to the Present (SEIZAN Gallery, New York)
2015
The End of Modernity in Calligraphy: From Yuichi Inoue, Lee Ufan to Zhang Yu (Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei)
1994
Japanese Art after 1945: Scream against the Sky (Yokohama Museum of Art, Guggenheim Museum, and San Francisco Museum of Art)
1973
Development of Postwar Japanese Art: Abstract and Non-Figurative (National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo”
1954
Japanese Calligraphy (The Museum of Modern Art, New York)
EXHIBITIONS
SUMI: JAPANESE INK PAINTING FROM POST-WAR TO THE PRESENT