2025 Collection Exhibition 3/ KOMAI Tetsuro, SUGAI Kumi, and IKEDA Masuo

Schedule: May 21 [Wed.] – May 24 [Sat.] 2025
11:00 - 19:00
※The exhibition schedule has been changed from the date announced in the previous DM.

*Click images to view in original size

The Collection Exhibition 3 will feature works by KOMAI Tetsuro, SUGAI Kumi, and IKEDA Masuo, who have received acclaim on the international stage.

KOMAI Tetsuro received an award for his “Fugitive Vision” at the first São Paulo Biennale, and in 1929 he went to France to study printmaking course at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, establishing himself as a copperplate print artist.

After working as a graphic designer in the advertising department of Hankyu Railway Corporation,

SUGAI Kumi went to France and exhibited his work in international exhibitions held in Europe and the United States, creating his own unique world in printmaking as well.

In 1965, IKEDA Masuo became the first Japanese artist to hold a solo exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, New York City, and the following year he was in the international limelight, winning the International Grand Prize in Printmaking section at the 33rd Venice Biennale.

This exhibition will distribute prints by these three artists at special prices.

■KOMAI Tetsuro
Born 1920 in Tokyo, Japan. Begun to learn a Copperplate printing from Takeo NISHIDA 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 Saitô 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.

■SUGAI Kumi
Kumi Sugai was born 1919 in Kobe. He initially worked as a designer for Hankyu Railway Corporation, where he created the logo for Hankyu Braves, one of the first Japanese professional baseball teams. He also studied Japanese-style painting with Teii Nakamura, but in 1952 moved to France where his first solo exhibition at Galerie Craven won considerable praise. In 1955, Sugai started to work with prints, of which he produced about 400 throughout his life. He won the Print First Prize at the Ljubljana International Print Exhibition in 1959, and the Grand Prix of the Sao Paolo Triennial in 1965. Sugai died in 1996, at the age of 77.

The gallery scene of the 1958 movie “Bonjour Tristesse,” by the way, gives a nice impression of Sugai’s early solo exhibitions. Sugai, who entered the international post-war art stage to gather immense successes as an abstract painter, to me has always been an admirable role model and teacher, as his example taught me about the complex relationships between publishers and artists. As a result, we were able to publish more than 70 of his geometrical-abstract prints during the 1970s-80s.

■IKEDA Masuo
Born 1934 in Manchuria, Ikeda returned to the hometown of his mother, Nagano, in 1945. After completing high school in 1952, Ikeda moved to Tokyo and began to work as a print artist. He won consecutively in 1960, 1962, and 1964 at the Tokyo International Print Biennial, and was awarded at the 33rd Venice Biennale in 1966 in the print section. Ikeda, on his way to international fame, did not stagnate on his successes; instead he went on to reinvent his art on multiple occasions.

While Ikeda continued to work as a print artist in Tokyo and New York, he also ventured into novel writing, which eventually garnered him the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 1977. Returning to Japan for good, Ikeda settled in Atami (Shizuoka Prefecture) where he experimented with ceramics and three-dimensional objects. He died in 1997.

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