Kuniyoshi Yasuo
Year unknown
Graphite pencil
From Mr. I’s Collection
Kuniyoshi Yasuo
1889-1953
Born in Okayama Prefecture. Kuniyoshi immigrated to the United States of America in 1906. He studied at art schools in Los Angeles and New York, then continued his studies at The Art Students League of New York. He moved to Europe and became active in the American Scene naturalist style of painting with his socially conscious method of expression. In 1929 he was included in the second exhibition of the Museum of Modern Art which exhibited paintings by Nineteen Living Americans. After the war, he depicted the madness and emptiness of war with an abstract and surreal style of work. He was elected as the first president of the Artists Equity Association, now known as New York Artists Equity Association. He was the first living artist chosen to have a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1948.