Kumi Sugai

In 1996, Sugai returned to Japan to receive the Shiju-Hosho prize, awarded by the Emperor of Japan to individuals with high cultural merit. He died Kobe on May 14 of that same year.

In 1981, he created artworks with his longtime friend, the poet Makoto Ōoka. At the occasion of an important retrospective organized in 1983 at the Seibu Museum of Art, Tokyo, the artist and poet reunited to create a work 10 meters long and 1.3 meters high, composed around an illustrated poem.

From the 1970s onwards, Sugai began working in series, and in 1977 he began focusing mainly on the production of lithographs. He regularly returned to Japan where a large number of retrospectives of his work were held.

In 1969, Sugai returned to Japan after 18 years of absence, having been commissioned to create a 16-meter long, 3.6 meter high mural in the entryway of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. Entitled Festival of Tokyo, the mural was the largest work the artist created during his career. Two solo exhibitions in Tokyo and Kyoto were held during his brief stay in Japan, his first ever solo exhibitions in his home country.

In 1967, Sugai and his wife suffered a major car accident while driving at extremely high speeds. While neither were killed, Sugai broke his neck and was hospitalized in Paris. However, this did not keep the artist from getting back on the road, and he soon purchased another Porsche. To aid him in his return to the studio, he hired an assistant, who began helping the artist prepare for his exhibition at the Japanese Pavilion of the Venice Biennale in 1968.

Sugai stated that 1962 was a transformative year in his career:

Sugai's style changed drastically after 1962. He abandoned informel-style materiality for matte, crisp surfaces, which ultimately led to his adoption of acrylic paint. The vaguely calligraphic signs that filled the canvases of the late 1950s were replaced by clearly-delineated geometric forms. He also began working on more monumental formats.

A significant catalyst in the development of this new, hard-edge, technological aesthetic was his purchase in 1960 of a Porsche. The visual language of road signs and urban living, as well as the thrill and exhilaration of speed, would inspire Sugai for the rest of his life. Between 1964 and 1968, Sugai produced about fifty works, each of which containing the word "Auto" in their titles, including Autoroute de l'après-midi, Autoroute du matin, Festival Autoroute, Autoroute au soleil.

Sugai was regularly featured in international exhibitions from the 1960s onwards and received numerous prizes. These include the Grand Prix at the 1961 Grenchen International Triennial of Color Printing, the Grand Prix at the 1965 Krakow International Print Biennial, and the Prix d'honneur at the 1972 International Print Biennial in Norway.

Sugai began experimenting with printmaking in 1955, three years after his arrival in Paris. In that year, he produced his first lithograph: a printmaking method popular in France but rare in Japan, where woodblock prints dominated. In 1957, he illustrated La Quête sans fin, a book of Jean-Clarence Lambert's poems, with his lithographs. That same year, he married a painter Kawamoto Mitsuko, whom he met in Paris.

Tajiri invited Sugai to exhibit in the second edition of art writer and critic Charles Estienne's salon Octobre held in 1953. His work was admired by art dealer John Craven, who offered Sugai a contract with his gallery and his first solo exhibition in Paris. Sugai's work also attracted the attention of influential critic and writer Michel Ragon, who included his work in two exhibitions, confirming Sugai's place in the loosely-affiliated Nouvelle École de Paris.

Upon discovering the work of Jackson Pollock and Alexander Calder, Sugai was determined to continue his artistic journey in the United States. However, lacking sufficient funds, he was only able to travel as far as Paris. He arrived there by himself in 1952 and resided in the Montparnasse neighborhood. Initially, he attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, where he studied under Edouard Goerg.

In the mid 1950's, Sugai's painted figures became increasingly abstract. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he produced a series of large, richly-colored canvases, dominated by blocky, calligraphic geometric shapes. Their titles evoke Japanese folklore: oni, samurai, raishin. Despite their increasing compositional simplicity that draws the eye in with an economy of assured strokes, the artist maintained a thick, textural quality in his use of paint.

Sugai also created a number of sculptural works in the late 1950s, including Objet, a paintbrush mounted on a small plinth, englobed in paint and taking on an abstract aspect. While sculpture was never a major preoccupation of the artist, he continued to occasionally produce sculptural works throughout the 1960s.

Sugai embarked on his fine arts practice after the war ended, in 1947. To make ends meet, he illustrated elementary school textbooks. After studying Japanese-style painting (nihonga) with the renowned Nihon Bijutsuin member Teii Nakamura, he became interested in avant-garde painting. He began frequenting the studio of Yoshihara Jirō, a local businessman and artist that would later lead the influential Gutai group. Yoshihara exerted a significant influence on Sugai's paintings during this period, reflecting their shcared focus on the materiality of paint and abstracted, childlike forms that call to mind the work of Paul Klee, Joan Miró, and Max Ernst. Another notable aspect of his work at this time is a recurring bird motif. Yoshihara's recognition for Sugai's practice is evidenced by his work being awarded a prize at the 4th Ashiya City Exhibition, an open-call competition at which Yoshihara served as a judge.

Sugai began his career in advertising for the Osaka-Kobe based railway company Hankyu, where he worked from 1937 to 1945. While he remained indifferent to this work, he appreciated the opportunity as a railway employee to travel throughout the country.

Kumi Sugai (菅井 汲, Sugai Kumi, March 13, 1919 – May 14, 1996) was a Japanese painter and printmaker. Driven by an interest in avant-garde painting, Sugai moved to Paris in 1952 where he quickly attracted critical attention, participating in numerous exhibitions in Paris and abroad. First working in a style resembling informalism or lyrical abstraction, he became affiliated with the Nouvelle École de Paris. During the early 1960s, his artworks radically transformed when he developed a hard-edge abstract style influenced by his interest in automobiles and contemporary urban living. While he did not officially associate himself with any single artistic movement or group, he collaborated on multiple projects with his poet friends, Jean-Clarence Lambert and Makota Ōoka.

Born in Kobe in 1919 to parents of Malay origin, Sugai's upbringing proved unstable. After being given to an adoptive family, he was later entrusted to his biological parents again, now divorced. Hospitalized for heart failure as a young boy, he remained bedridden for two years. At fourteen, he studied briefly at the Osaka School of Fine Arts but was unable to complete his studies due to his ill health.