Ryouhei Koiso + Churyo Sato "Looking at Models"

Sagawa Art Museum

This event has ended.

The relationship between Ryouhei Koiso and Churyo Sato began after they broke away from the then-called Imperial Art Academy and formed the New Creative Faction Committee. The New Creative Faction Committee was founded in 1936 with nine members, starting with Koiso himself, as well as Genichiro Inokuma, in opposition to the revival of the Teiten after its 1935 re-organization. Initially just established as a painting group, in 1939 a further seven artists, including Sato and Yasutake Funakoshi, joined it and created the sculpture division. The re-named New Creative Committee is now organized into three areas, that of painting, sculpture and space design.
There was disparity in this meeting of the fields of painting and sculpture, but as two figurative artists it is not hard to imagine how they found mutual stimulation. Sato himself said admiringly of Koiso, "Out of the many portraits, for myself the strongest have been "Practice Room and Dancing Children", painted at 35, and "Chorus", painted at 38. The intent vision of the young boys and girls, the depth of emotion restrained and given out by Koiso's art; the secret of youth is really shown off." Here one can see the deep impression that Koiso's work made on Sato.
The two artists expressed much on the spatial difference between surface and dimension, but in their work it can surely be said that their mutuality was in the promotion of model studies. Koiso from early on successively employed models that he had selected, and his own family; likewise Sato also created work that repeatedly featured his relations and favorite models. For them both, the model gave out an intimate presence of daily life, and was a source of artistic inspiration. It is in their ideas regarding models that one can likely see what they had in common.
This exhibition is made up of works of models and people by Koiso and Sato, works that capture the emotions of the moment and the mind. An up to now unseen symphony of surface and dimension will be born, and the interaction of influences between these two similar figurative artists and the heightened charms of their respective works will create a deep impression on many visitors.

[Image: Churyo Sato "Hat, Summer" (1972)]