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" Children Playing with a Giant "
1961, 77.0 X 109.0 cm, collection of Setagaya Art Museum
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| After graduating from high school, Fumio did not go on to university but instead,
determined to become a painter, entered the Fine Arts Department of the liberal
Bunka Gakuin. Even at that avant-garde institution, however, he found himself
unable to accept the basic education required for the academic study of art.
He listened to the music of Beethoven at home and captured the internal images
it evoked. His work from this period shows a symbolically represented giant
filling the pictures. The giant can appear to be either the artist's manifestation
of his own self made to look larger, or a satirical jab at the figures of power
at that time. |
" Untitled "
1964, 27.0 X 38.0 cm, collection of Setagaya Art Museum
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| Fumio left Bunka Gakuin after two years. His creative drive grew ever more vital,
and he immersed himself in painting and drawing at home. When Fumio showed his
pictures to a gallery owner introduced by his father, he was advised that it
would be difficult to succeed in the world as a newcomer, so he should work
on becoming an illustrator. From this point he began to do line drawings. He
never went into illustration. |
" Red Hat "
1967, 27.0 X 38.0 cm, collection of Setagaya Art Museum
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| When Fumio turned 26, he was still in his third year at university, but he was
still able to hold his first one-man show at a gallery in Shinbashi. He exhibited
a large number of works, including pictures he had been creating since the age
of 22 as well as new works, and received good reviews. The figure in the red
hat may be watering a plant in this serene, fairy-tale-like painting. |
" Untitled "
1970, 27.0 X 38.0 cm, collection of Setagaya Art Museum
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| During his fourth year, universities in Japan were plunged into a period of
riots and disturbances. Fumio suffered nervous distress and took a year off
from school. Returning to campus in 1970, he graduated from Waseda University
in his fifth year. Fumio had held numerous one-man shows while still a university
student, and newspapers carried favorable reviews each time. He began to be
noticed as an up-and-coming artist of great promise. The young woman whose image
appears frequently in his pictures may represent the girl he met at the seashore
and fell in love with during his last year in high school. |
" Untitled "
1969
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| In January 1974, Fumio fell from a ferry while returning from a trip to Kyushu
with his older brother, and drowned in the Inland Sea. He died at the age of
32, still young. During the period after his graduation from university, he
submitted works to exhibitions of promising new artists in successive years,
and was beginning to establish his reputation as an up-and-coming artist. Fumio's
death was accidental. Many of his works from 1973 to 1974, however, show a fascination
with the ocean, and in hindsight, these seem to provide glimpses foreshadowing
Fumio's death. |
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