Koichiro Wakamatsu (若松 光一郎)

1914: Born in Iwaki city, Fukushima Prefecture
1933: Enters the Oil Painting Department of the Tokyo Fine Arts School and studies under Takeji Fujishima
1945: Experiences Hiroshima’s atomic bomb blast. Later that year, after the end of WW2, he returns to his hometown in Fukushima.
1955: Launches the group, “Humanité” in Iwaki, Fukushima
1995: Passes away at 81 years old.

Japanese collage artist, Koichiro Wakamatsu (1914-1995) was known to paint while listening to classical music, which perhaps is why his works, like musical visualizations, appear to sing in veneration of life.

He studied under Fujishima Takeji at Tokyo Art School (current Tokyo University of the Arts) and following graduation, mingled with the crowds at the “Ikebukuro Montparnasse”, an art village in the Toshima Ward where artists would gather.

During WW2, the artist was stationed in Hiroshima and, just a year before the end of the war, experienced the blast of the atomic bomb firsthand. Following the war, he returned to his hometown in Fukushima and continued to paint. Nevertheless, the trauma of the war would linger for the rest of his life, as reflected in his later works.

Although the artist painted figuratively in his early career, he went through various aesthetic shifts and turned to abstraction in the 1960s. Forming a hallmark aesthetic, Wakamatsu began to create the experimental, musical, and colorful collages that he is now best known for. Inspired by the tenants of Neorealism, Wakamatsu’s work plays the connection between life and art through music.

［Solo Exhibitions］

1961: First solo exhibition in Tokyo at Takekawa Gallery

1968: Solo exhibition, Taira City Hall, Iwaki city, Fukushima

1983: Solo exhibition, Striped House Museum, Tokyo

1985: “Wakamatsu Koichiro: Ihanseiki no Ayumi” (Koichiro Wakamatsu: Tracing Half a Century), Iwaki City Art Museum

1996: “The World of Koichiro Wakamatsu”, Ikeda Museum of 20th Century Art

2011: Solo Exhibition, Iwaki City Art Museum

2018: Koichiro Wakamatsu Exhibition – Song of the Earth -, Kashima Arts, Tokyo

［Group Exhibitions］

1937: Participates in the 2nd Shinsaku-ha exhibition, a series of exhibitions in which Sugimata would continually participate at until his death.

1955: Holds the first Humanity group exhibition and continues to hold these shows annually until 1959

1991:  Wakamatsu’s works are exhibited posthumously in “A New Wave’ Contemporary Japanese Oil Paintings” (Japan Festival, Concourse Gallery, Barbican Centre, London, UK).

 

[Award]

1973: Fukushima Cultural Award

1983: Receives the first Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Regional Cultural Merits Award

 

[Public Collections]

The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (Japan) / Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art (Japan) / Iwaki City Art Museum (Japan) / Koriyama City Museum of Art (Japan) / Rose Art Museum (U.S.)