Spring Mini Exhibition / MATSUMOTO Shunsuke and KOMAI Tetsuro

Feb. 15 [Wed.] ― Feb. 25 [Sat.], 2023 11:00-19:00
Gallery closed Sun., Mon., and national holidays.

*Click images to view in original size

This exhibition will present drawings by MATSUMOTO Shunsuke and works by KOMAI Tetsuro focusing on his early copperplate prints and buring engravings. We will display "Memory", a copperplate print by a 28 year old Komai, and "Fugue Somnambula", an ambitious burin work made for his first solo exhibition at Shiseido Gallery in 1953, the year before his study in France.

■MATSUMOTO Shunsuke (1912～1948)
Born name is SATO Shunsuke. He moved to Iwate Prefecture when he was 2 and grew up in the city of Morioka. He changed his name to MATSUMOTO when he married MATSUMOTO Teiko in 1936. MATSUMOTO aspired to become an artist after he lost his hearing upon entering middle school. One of his classmates was FUNAKOSHI Yasutake. After dropping out of middle school in 1929, he moved to Tokyo, where he began to attend the Taihei Yogaka Institute. In 1935 he joined the avant garde group NOVA, and exhibited for the first time at the Nika Exhibition. The next year, he married Teiko, and together they founded the magazine "Zakkicho". Participants included HAYASHI Fumiko, NAMBATA Tatsuoki, TAKAMURA Kotaro, and HAGIWARA Sakutaro, who published essays, and FOUJITA Tsuguharu, TSURUOKA Masao, ASO Saburo, who published dessins and frontispieces. He had his first solo exhibition at Nichido Gallery in Ginza in 1940. In 1941, his essay, "Living Artists", a response to the discussion piece "The Military State and Art" from the January issue of the art magazine Mizue, was published in its April issue. In the same year, he participated in "Yasutake Funakoshi・Shunsuke Matsumoto Exhibition" was held at Kawatoku Gallery in Morioka.
During wartime, in 1943, he began the Shinjin Gakai with 8 members starting with Aimitsu, ASO Saburo, and TERADA Masaaki; they managed to hold 3 exhibitions. Postwar, in 1946, MATSUMOTO advocated for artists unions and encouraged the revival of the artists of Japan who sank from the stress of war. In 1947 he and the other members of the Shinjin Gakai joined the Jiyuu Bijutsu Kyokai; in the following year of 1948 he exhibited the pieces "Sculpture and Woman" and "Building" at a Mainichi Shimbun exhibition - these were to be his last works, and his short life of 36 years would come to an end.

■KOMAI Tetsuro (1920～1976)
Born 1920 in Tokyo, Japan. Begun to learn a Copperplate printing from NISHIDA Takeo in 1935. He graduated the Tokyo Art School in 1942. After the World War II he exhibited works as a member of the Nihon Hanga Kyokai (Japanese Print Society) and Shunyokai artists' association and also contributed prints to a variety of exhibitions. In 1951 he received an award in the first São Paulo Biennale for a representative work of his early period, Momentary Illusion, the same exhibition where SAITO Kiyoshi received an award (and had his breakthrough as an artist) with Steady Gaze.
In the following year he was also given an award at the Lugano International Print Biennial. In 1953 he had his first solo exhibition at Shiseido Gallery. From 1954 to 1955 he studied in Paris. The opening exhibition of the Minami Gallery in 1956 was the Tesuro KOMAI Exhibition. From 1972 to 1976, he lectured at the Tokyo University of the Arts. Komai played a significant role in the promotion of Copperplate printing as an art form in the post-war Japan. He died in 1976 at the age of 56.

Exhibition View

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