Okada Kenzo (1902-1982)

By Dane Moffat

Okada Kenzo, Grey, 1970, oil on canvas, 169.4 x 218.8cm, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.

Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Okada Kenzo waited until his father, an unsupportive industrialist, passed away to enrol at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. Born in Yokohama, Japan, on 28 September 1902, Okada studied at the institution for two years before he terminated his enrolment, bored of the Japanese infrastructure of yoga (Western-style painting). The artist moved to Paris between 1924 and 1927, where he studied under the tutelage of Fujita Tsuguharu (selfishly, a subject of my dissertation, and through whom I discovered Okada). Over the next twenty years, after his return from Paris, Okada became a frequent exhibitor in the Second Section Exhibition, organised by one of modern Japan’s many art societies, and displayed a suite of Impressionist-style landscapes and portraits.

The artist moved to New York City in the early 1950s, frustrated by the Japanese art scene and its constraints. The move shocked Okada and his art practice into a period of uncertainty, overwhelmed by the raw energy and creative freedom exhibited across the city. Okada recalled an inability to understand the grammar of Abstract Expressionism, a burgeoning movement at the time, and began painting by a process of ‘doing without knowing.’ This shift was influenced by various Zen Buddhist meditative principles and techniques that allowed him, like other Abstract Expressionists, to unlock his subconscious. In Okada’s terms, he thought only of New York whilst in Japan, and only of Japan whilst in New York. His painting Grey (1970), pictured above, reflects this sentiment, reminiscent of both colour field painting and the dominant modes of Japanese modern art: yoga (an oil-based genre) and nihonga (Japanese painting which consisted of mineral pigment and ink on silk and depicted natural subjects). Organised like a triptych, abstract shapes lay flat against overlapping fields of grey and beige, hinting at a nondescript landscape. On the left: ripples of orange, pink, and green form a pond-like shape. On the right: blue-grey squares linger like clouds above rolling black mounds. It begins as a moody canvas, each section abruptly and progressively clipped, and resolves into a cool fusion of his artistic and cultural heritage.

In 1952, Okada was signed by art dealer and gallerist Betty Parsons—the representative of Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Barnett Newman—after a studio visit. A year later, she mounted his first solo show at her New York City space which led to purchases of Okada’s work from major collections like the Guggenheim and Museum of Modern Art.

From the late 1950s, Okada regularly visited Japan and established a second residence in Tokyo. He passed away on 25 July 1982, on a trip to view his first Japanese museum retrospective at the Seibu Museum of Art.

Bibliography

Oxford Reference. “Kenzo Okada.” Accessed September 22, 2025. https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100247737Reference

Peggy Guggenheim Collection. “Kenzo Okada.” Accessed September 22, 2025. https://www.guggenheim-venice.it/en/art/artists/kenzo-okada/