Vicmart

See scan - absolutely perfect condition. This is a very nice and rare watercolor painting by Taro Okamoto both signed front and back, as well as addressed to a very high ranking foreign official. Due to other factors, I have removed the name of the person from the scanned images of the painting, but in any case it is still at the back of the painting and will be revealed to final buyer. The painting is about 35-40 cm in size and almost a square and done on special cardboard with gold leaf edges and silver snowflakes at reverse. It is absolutely guaranteed that it is an authentic work by Taro Okamoto and it is dated 1979. The painting has been autographed both at front and back both in Japanese and French with a text in French. Biography: Taro Okamoto was born in Tokyo, the eldest son of cartoonist Ippei Okamoto and the poet and novelist Kanoko Okamoto. Over the course of his career, he would work as a painter, ceramicist, sculptor, muralist, designer and writer. He entered the Tokyo School of Fine Arts in 1929 to study painting, but left Japan to accompany his parents to Europe. While living in Paris and studying philosophy at the University of Paris, Okamoto encountered the paintings of Picasso and determined to become an abstract painter. In 1932 he exhibited his own work at the Salon des Independants, and in 1933 joined the Abstration-Creation Group of avant-garde artists. His 1936 painting Sad Arm was included in the 1938 International Surrealist Exhibition. In the years before his return to Japan, Okamoto’s circle of friends included painters and other intellectuals associated with Surrealism, including Andre Breton, Louis Aragon, Max Ernst and George Bataille, and he studied ethnology with Marcel Mauss. He left Paris after the Nazi invasion of France in 1940. In 1941, the paintings he produced in Europe earned him the Japanese Nika Prize. Okamoto served in the military from 1942-1946, returning to Tokyo to find many of his paintings burned in an air raid. In 1948, he collaborated with the critic Kiyoteru Hanada to organize the Night Society, the Yoru no Kai, to explore the integration of avant-garde art and literature, while at the same time pursuing his own writing and exhibiting his paintings. In 1952, inspired by artifacts of prehistoric Japanese pottery, he created his first mosaic tile mural, Mythology of the Sun, which was exhibited at the 4th Japan Independent Exhibition. During the 50s, he continued to write and work with ceramic tiles, publishing the best-selling Today’s Art (1954), and creating murals for the Nihonbashi Subway Station (1952); the Shochiku Central Theater (1956); and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (1956). His 1964 mural, created in collaboration with the architect Kenzo Tange for the National Yoyogi Stadium, earned him the International Grand Award for Architectural Painting from the French magazine l’Architecture d’aujourd’hui. By this time, Okamoto has also begun to sculpt. His work Tower of the Sun was created for Expo ’70 in Osaka, (for which he also served as theme producer), and his work Tree Man was honored at the ‘Street Gallery’ Art Festival in Paris in 1971. During the 70’s, he continued to work as a muralist and designer. A retrospective of his work was held at the Musee Galliera in Paris in 1976, with books of his prints and paintings published by Editions de la Difference, and his collected writings were published in nine volumes by Kodansha in 1979. He continued to create and exhibit new works, including the monument Looking at the Future for the Tsukuba Expo ’85, and the Tree of Children for the Children’s Castle in Aoyama, also in that year. In 1989 he was invited to join the French Order of Arts and Letters as an officer. Okamoto died in 1996. Scarce work of art collector piece and one of the nice contemporary Japanese artists paintings. A recent sale of a Taro Okamoto painting at Sotheby's during the time while Okamoto was still alive fetched a result of over $8,000.