Key Hiraga Biography
Key Hiraga was born in Tokyo in 1936.
After graduating from the University of Tokyo, he dedicated himself completely to painting, participating in several group exhibitions starting in 1956. In 1965, thanks to the granting of a scholarship, he moved to Paris, a crucial experience that enriched his poetics initially characterized by monochromatism, thus introducing an explosion of colours. In that same year, William Lieberman, curator of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, was fascinated by his works and decided to include them in the exhibition “New Japanese Painting and Sculpture” exhibited in eight different American museums from '65 to '67. In 1966-1967, Hiraga was part of the ORA group linked to the art critic Gérald Gassiot-Talabots, who included him in the movement of Narrative Figuration, far from both the social neutrality of the School of Paris and the formalism of American Pop Art. Hiraga's participation in the X Sao Paulo Biennial as a representative of Japan together with six other artists is essential for his career.
During his stay in Europe, Hiraga participated in multiple personal and collective exhibitions in the Netherlands, Italy, England and Japan, where he returned definitively in 1977.
The artist died in 2000 in Hakone-Yumoto at the age of 64.
