DOMOTO HISAO (1928-2013)SOLUTION DE CONTINUITE, 1966 |

oil on canvas, signed, titled and dated 1966 New York on reverse

Martha Jackson Gallery, New York Private collection, San Francisco and thence by descent

Hisao Domoto Retrospective, The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, and Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan, 2005 Seeing Round Corners, Turner Contemporary, Margate, Sat 21 May - Sun 25 Sep 2016

Shinichoro Osaki, 'Hisao Domoto: Movement and Discontinuity', Shinchiro Osaki, Etsuko Sugiyama (eds.)

This Lot is in good condition.
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Hisao Dōmoto (1928-2013) was born in Kyoto to a family of artists and connoisseurs. His father collected traditional Japanese ceramics, calligraphy and painting. Dōmoto studied nihonga (traditional Japanese painting) at Kyoto Shiritsu Bijutsu Senmongakko (Kyoto City University of Arts) from 1945-1949. In 1948, while still at university, one of his works was selected for the Nitten (Japan Fine Arts Exhibition). In 1952 Dōmoto travelled with his uncle Inshō to Italy, France and Spain where he first encountered Western art, an experience which eventually motivated him to take a studio on the Left Bank of Paris in 1955. In the 1950s, he became associated with Art Informel (Art Without Form) a Paris based influential art movement headed by Michel Tapie (1909-1987).

Domoto was an instant success in Paris and became friends with other emerging painters such as Soulages and Zao Wou-ki. His first solo exhibition at the Stadler Gallery, Paris 1957 was highly successful and in the same year his work appeared in an exhibition organized by Michel Tapie entitled L’art Mondial Contemporain a Tokyo.

In 1958 Dōmoto collaborated on a special issue of the Gutai journal entitled L’Aventure Informelle and visited New York in the same year for his first solo exhibition at the Martha Jackson gallery. There he met with Jasper Johns, whose White Flag made a lasting impression on him.

Dōmoto parted from Tapie and Informel in 1962 and started the Solutions de Continuité (Solutions of Continuity) series in 1963 using heavy impasto (thickly applied paint) in vertical and horizontal strips which are then scraped back to reveal other previously applied colours beneath.