Her early years
Yayoi Kusama was born in 1929, the youngest daughter of family from the mountainous region of Matsumoto in central Japan.
Kusama s family; Yayoi is second from the right Courtesy Yayoi Kusama Studio, Inc
Her family made their living from the cultivation of plant seeds. There is still a plant nursery on the site of Kusama’s childhood home. She had a conventional upbringing, and when Kusama began to express enthusiasm in making art, her family were not wholly supportive. Her mother in particular discouraged her young daughter’s dreams of becoming a professional artist, trying to steer her instead towards the conventional path of a traditional Japanese housewife. But Kusama’s persistence was strong. When her mother tore her drawings away from her, Kusama made more. When she could not afford to buy art supplies, she used materials she found around the home.
by Emika Suzuki
TATSUO IKEDA. Photo by Gallery 58, Tokyo. Image via Instagram.
Tatsuo Ikeda, a pioneering Japanese artist who depicted the horrors of war with images of disquieting creatures, passed away on November 30 from aspiration pneumonia, aged 92. His death was first reported on December 7 by
An influential figure of Japan’s postwar political art that emerged during the 1950s, Ikeda satirized the atrocities of war in his earlier works, as well as the United States’ presence in Japan and the Japanese government’s abuse of power at the time. This was exemplified in ink drawings such as
10,000 Count (1954), depicting grotesque fish mutated due to an American nuclear bomb test at Bikini Atoll. Similarly,