KOICHIRO WAKAMATSU
1914-1995, JapanThe major Japanese collage artist, Koichiro Wakamatsu (1914–1995) was known to paint while listening to classical music, which perhaps is why his works, which seem to sing in veneration of life, look so much like musical visualisations. He studied under Fujishima Takeji at Tokyo Art School (current Tokyo University of the Arts) and after graduating, hung about with the ‘Ikebukuro Montparnasse’, an art village in the Toshima Ward where artists would gather.⠀⠀
During the war, Wakamatsu was stationed in Hiroshima and experienced the blast of the atomic bomb first hand, only a year before the end of WW2. Following the war, the artist returned to his hometown in Fukushima and continued to paint. Nevertheless, the experience and trauma of the war would linger for the rest of his life and would impact the works of his later years.
Although he made figurative works in his early career, he turned to abstraction post-1960s. Forming a hallmark aesthetic, he began to create the experimental, inherently musical and colourful collages that he is now best known for. Inspired by the tenants of Neorealism, Wakamatsu’s work plays the connection between life and art through music.
Courtesy √K Contemporary
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