SENKICHIRO NASAKA
Senkichiro Nasaka studied at art colleges before enrolling at the Kyoto City University of Arts, where he was a contemporary of Kazuo Shiraga. Although Nasaka began his career painting in traditional Japanese style, he transitioned to oil painting in the 1960s. In 1965, Nasaka exhibited works in the 15th Gutai Art Exhibition and became a member of the Gutai Art Association. During his Gutai period, there was a significant shift in style, transitioning from tableaux works influenced by Art Informel to the incorporation of hard-edge imagery, including light art and kinetic art. This later style came to represent Gutai as a whole. At the Guggenheim Museum’s Gutai retrospective exhibition Gutai: Splendid Playground (2013), Nasaka reproduced a previous work made of aluminium tubes installed throughout the entire exhibition space like a form of scaffolding. In recent years, Nasaka’s works produced during the early Gutai period, characterized by subtle blends of various colours, have been in high demand among collectors.
