Kotaro Fukui
As a fourth generation artist, Kotaro Fukui grew up bounded within the traditions of Nihonga and the avant-garde of the Japanese modern art world. His father was active in the passionate Japanese modern art movement of the 1960s and 70s. His great-grandfather, Koutei Fukui, was a master of Nihonga (Japanese style painting) and an important figure in the Japanese art world. Koutei Fukui was an eestemed professor at the prestigious Tokyo School of Art, (the precursor to Tokyo University of Art).
During the late 1800s and early 1900s there was a major social upheaval in Japan, which was rapidly Westernizing and disregarding Japanese traditions. Consequently, Nihonga and other styles of Japanese art fell out of favor domestically. Many Japanese masterpieces wound up in American collections like the work found in the Boston Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Kotaro Fukui saw this lack of domestic patronage as a crisis and in response worked feverously with his mentor Kawabata Gyokusho (1842-1913) to categorize Japanese Nihonga as a unique concept distinct from Western painting. Given this family history, the hidden but broad potential of art as an enduring conversation between the past and present has been etched into Fukui’s psyche.