[Fukuoka] New year project: The 100th Birthday Anniversary Yoshishige FURUKAWA Exhibition Jan.15(Sat)- 30(Sun), 2022

"M-59" oil on canvas, in 1989

New year project:
The 100th Birthday Anniversary Yoshishige FURUKAWA Exhibition
Jan.15(Sat)- 30(Sun), 2022
10am-6pm (Open every day during the event)
Venue: MIZOE ART GALLERY FUKUOKA

Gallery talk
January 15th 4pm
"About Yoshishige FURUKAWA and New York"
Guest: Akiko Mashima Listener: Kazunobu Abe

Heartily I wish you a Happy New Year. We look forward to your continued goodwill in the coming year.

It is not sure when I looked at a work of Yoshishige FURUKAWA for the first time. However, as I got more chances to see his works, I got to know the fact that the artist from Fukuoka was active in New York in the early times which made me strongly attracted by his work and life.
On 19th December in 1921, Yoshishige FURUKAWA was born in Fukuoka-shi. He studied in Tokyo Fine Arts School (Tokyo University of the Arts at present) before he was conscripted into the navy. After demobilization, he continued making artworks and exhibitions based in Fukuoka and Tokyo. His artistic style transformed into abstract art influenced by fauvism and cubism. After he went to New York in 1963, he started to pursue his unique abstract expression. Although he had continued lonely practice abroad, he met a sculptor Akiko MASHIMA in 1976 to live together in New York. After coming back to Japan in 2000, he worked based in Sagamihara-shi until 2008 when he passed away at the age of 86.

This exhibition will display around 25 artworks including small works and sketches with the large oil paintings as the main feature that show geometric shapes on the background of rich colors and solid texture which were created after the late 1980s. Also, you can see the artworks by the artists who were acquainted with Furukawa such as Akiko Mashima, a sculptor who is the wife of Furukawa, and Gyoji Nomiyama who knew each other before Tokyo Fine Arts School. Please look at the life and world of Yoshishige FURUKAWA who ran through the turbulent times as a painter.

We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to Ms. Akiko Mashima, who made a big contribution to this exhibition, and Koki Ishibashi, who is the eldest son and the representative of KOKI ARTS. (Kazunobu Abe, Mizoe Art Gallery)


"L18-3" oil on canvas, in 2000