By TAKUMI ONO/ Staff Writer
July 21, 2022 at 07:10 JST
Three newly discovered abstract paintings believed to have been drawn by Taro Okamoto are shown in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward on July 8. (Takumi Ono)
The discovery of three abstract paintings believed to have been created by Taro Okamoto in Paris in his early 20s sheds light on how the avant-garde artist explored his own style, experts said.
Okamoto (1911-1996) produced abstract pieces, inspired by Spanish painter Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), while he was in the French capital from 1930 to 1940. It was long thought that all of his works from his Paris days were lost to the ravages of World War II.
The three works are believed to have been drawn between 1931 and 1933, according to a team of Japanese art experts who studied the pieces.
“These are the starting point for Okamoto, which no one had ever known about before,” said Akiomi Hirano, director of the Taro Okamoto Memorial Museum in Tokyo and a member of the team. “We have found the last piece of the puzzle of Okamoto’s art.”
The three paintings, mainly based on the colors of blue, black and cream, respectively, are owned by Hubert le Gall, a French designer living in Paris.
Known for creating works of art with deep existential meaning, Okamoto designed the “Tower of the Sun,” a symbol of the 1970 Osaka Expo in Osaka Prefecture, and produced “The Myth of Tomorrow,” a huge mural depicting the explosion of an atomic bomb.
The young Okamoto returned to Japan after Nazi Germany captured the French capital.
He was then sent to China for military service and returned home in 1946. During his absence, his Tokyo home was destroyed in an air raid, which was believed to have burned up all his paintings from his Paris days.
One of the three paintings bears a signature of “Taro Okamoto” written in kanji on the side of the canvas.
When the experts conducted a handwriting analysis to compare the signature with Okamoto’s handwriting from his teenage years, they determined with 80 to 90 percent certainty that they were written by the same person.
The experts also concluded that the paint and fabrics of the canvases used for the three paintings were most likely the same.
The paintings will be unveiled at the “Okamoto Taro: A Retrospective” exhibition, which kicks off at the Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka, on July 23 before traveling to the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in October and the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art in January.
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