Early life and education (1902–1927) Okada was born September 28, 1902, in Yokohama, Japan. His father, a wealthy industrialist, did not support his son's desire to be an artist. When his father died, Okada entered the department of
Western painting at Tokyo School of Fine Arts (present
Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music). In 1924, Okada dropped out from Tokyo School of Fine Arts and left for
Paris where he studied with fellow Japanese expatriate
Tsuguharu Foujita, executing paintings of urban subjects. In 1927, he exhibited work in the
Salon d'Automne.
Early career in Japan (1927–1950) In 1927, Okada returned to
Japan and within a year he had his first one-person show at the
Mitsukoshi Department Store in Tokyo. In 1929, his works were selected for the sixteenth Second Section Exhibition (
Nika-ten 二科展), an annual salon organized by the modernist artist association Second Section Society (
Nika-kai 二科会). Thereafter, Okada's works were displayed in the Second Section Exhibition every year. Okada became popular in the Second Section Society for his luscious portraits of women and landscapes of French cityscapes. In 1937, the Second Section Society admitted Okada's (along with
Tamiji Kitagawa,
Keiji Shimazaki,
Kōnosuke Tamura, and among others) full membership. Okada became friends with
Rothko,
Newman, and many other Abstract Expressionists. The American artist
Michelle Stuart wrote: "when Okada came to the United States he was already a mature painter, well considered in his native Japan. To American abstraction Okada brought civilized restraint, an elegance of device and an unusual gift for poetic transmutation of natural forms." At the
29th Venice Biennale in 1958, Okada’s work was exhibited in the
Japan Pavilion (representative:
Shūzō Takiguchi; assistant commissioner:
Ichirō Fukuzawa and Yoshiaki Tōno) alongside that of five other Japanese artists (
Ichirō Fukuzawa,
Kawabata Ryūshi,
Seison Maeda,
Yoshi Kinouchi,
Shindō Tsuji), and Okada won Astorre Meyer Prize and UNESCO Prize. His paintings from the 1950s and 1960s reveal subtle changes in the natural world through the use of imagery constructed with delicate, sensitive color tonalities, floating within the compositional space.
Turn from 1962, in the collection of the
Honolulu Museum of Art, and
Hagoromo from 1966, in the
Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection, are examples of the artist's tonal abstractions. During the 1970s he painted numerous works that used as a point of departure the reinterpretation of the decorative effects of traditional
Japanese painting. Okada evokes the aura of landscape by using earth colors, abstract patterns hinting at rocks and flowers, and an overall haziness that makes his scenes look submerged in water. Bringing traditions of Japanese art to the
New York School of abstraction, Okada distills the essence of nature into his painting, making it seem elemental and thus sublime. His sensitive and personal style of abstract expressionism, with elements inspired by Japanese art, relates directly to both
color field painting and
lyrical abstraction. The art historian
Bert Winther-Tamaki points out that "The painting he did in Japan before 1950 was figuratibe and bore a close resemblance to styles of the
École de Paris. But after the move to New York, his painting became abstract and took on what people perceived to be a Japanese appearance, owing to its stylistic 'yugenism' buttressed by an occasional Japanese title or the vestige of some motif such as a fan shape or a vertical division reminiscent of the seam of a folding screen." In November, 1989, the
Akita Senshu Museum of Art opened the Kenzo Okada Memorial (岡田謙三記念館), the special exhibition room that displays Okada’s oeuvre permanently. Okada's works were featured in the 1997 landmark world-touring exhibition
Asian Traditions/Modern Expressions which made ground-breaking contributions to knowledge about Asian American art history. Subsequently, his works were discussed in the multi-author volume
Asian American Art: A History, 1850-1970 (2008), which was the first comprehensive study on Asian American art history. Ultimately, in 2022, the
New York State Capitol held the exhibition
Isamu Noguchi & Kenzo Okada to celebrate
Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month. The exhibition "highlight[ed] how their East Asian heritage helped shape postwar American art." == Selected exhibitions ==