Kumi Sugai Biography
Kumi Sugai (1919 - 1996) was a painter and printmaker who, like many Asian artists of his generation, settled in Paris and adopted a Western style in his art. Born in Kobe to Malaysian musicians, Sugai attended the Osaka School of Fine Arts, where he learned European painting techniques as well as classical Japanese painting and calligraphy. In 1937 he dropped out to work as a designer at a railway company until the end of World War II. In 1952, Sugai moved to Paris, where he studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere and absorbed Western styles, including abstract expressionism and, later, minimalism and pop art. Early on, Sugai worked with traditional ukiyo-e woodblock printing techniques, using vibrant colors to create prints infused with contemporary Western influences. In the 1960s, however, Sugai moved on to painting and printing more geometric images of letters, street and directional signs. He quickly met with international success and exhibited work at the São Paulo Biennale, Documenta in Kassel and the Venice Biennale, as well as solo exhibitions in New York and Tokyo. In addition to painting, Sugai wrote essays on his artistic process and, inspired by his friend Alberto Giacometti (Switzerland, 1901–1966), translated the subjects of some of his paintings into small sculptures. Sugai continued to work in his geometric style for the rest of his life. Before his death in 1996 in Kobe, Japan, Sugai achieved international success, participating in the Pittsburgh International five times between 1955 and 1970 and holding a major retrospective of his work at the Seibu Museum of Art in Tokyo in 1983.
