Tetsuro Komaï

Overview

Komai Tetsuro (1920-1976), a pioneer of modern copperplate printmaking in Japan, gained renown both at home and abroad for the profound and poetic world envisioned in his prints. In black ink on white paper he expressed a cosmos of endless wandering amid reveries and madness, one that seems all the more fascinating in the current digital era.

While focusing on copperplate prints, Komai also interacted extensively with poets and musicians, and in his works as a member of the cross-disciplinary art group Jikken Kobo (Experimental Workshop) and his illustrations for poetry collections, he reached across boundaries between media and genres. The formation of Komai’s vision was also influenced by his love of Western art and great admiration for Odilon Redon in particular.

The multifaceted nature of the artist and new, unexplored charms of his works are highlighted in this exhibition, which resembles a tapestry where the chronological development of Komai’s work form the warp, and his influences and connections with other artists the weft. One hitherto little-known aspect revealed here: the artist as a colorist, in vibrant color monotypes from the Fukuhara Yoshiharu Collection of the Setagaya Art Museum. A total of about 210 of Komai’s works appear, including his prints and illustrations for poetry books, as well as about 70 works by related artists, in a fertile and fascinating creative landscape of organic connections among diverse genres of art.