Furukawa Art Museum Annex Tamesaburo Memorial Museum ”Teruko Yokoi Exhibition: Blooming in Switzerland”

Based in Switzerland, Teruko Yokoi was a painter who created many colorful works on the theme of nature, such as seasonal scenes and flowers. In 1949, she became an auditing student at Joshibi University of Art and Design, where she studied under Takanori Kinoshita. In the early stages of her career, she was influenced by Takanori Kinoshita, who was a master of figurative expression using colored surfaces. However, after moving to the U.S. in 1953, he made a major shift to abstract paintings. While making use of her Japanese identity, he began to use traditional Japanese techniques to create abstract paintings as her artwork. In 1959, she married the painter Sam Francis, and in 1960, at the age of 36, they moved to Paris, and in 1962, they moved to Switzerland, where Yokoi’s work took off even further, In the early 1960s, some of her abstract paintings were heavy in color, but after moving to Switzerland, her colors became brighter and her compositions more refined. Yokoi then worked with a variety of painting materials, including egg tempera, a mixture of water and egg paint, oil, watercolor, and lithograph, and established a firm style of her own. Her work is a lyrical worldview inspired by the beautiful Japanese seasons, with bold compositions, rich colors, and a combination of figuration and abstraction. This exhibition, in cooperation with the Teruko Yokoi Hinageshi Art Museum in Ena City, Gifu Prefecture, introduces a part of Yokoi Teruko’s 70 years of creative activities and widely communicates her existence and appeal to the public. The exhibition will also feature the world of Teruko Yokoi, who has established a firm position in the art world through her wide-ranging activities, including more than 90 solo exhibitions, book covers for Bungei-shunju and Fujin-no-tomo magazines, and commercial designs such as packages for confectioneries.