Tadasky / Tadasuke Kuwayama Art

Tadasky #B-119, 1964 Signed, titled, and dated "Tadasky / 1964 / #B-119" on the reverse Acrylic on canvas 15 x 15 inches Provenance: Kootz Gallery, New York Private Collection, Maryland Tadasky (Tadasuke Kuwayama) was born in Nagoya, Japan. He painted since childhood, but as a youngster was steered toward his father's business of shrine-building. This led him to study applied engineering at university in Tokyo and learn the craft of miyadaiku (shrine carpenters) in the family factory. Tadasky taught himself about modern and Western art from books. His eyes were opened to the power of abstraction through the work of Josef Albers and other Bauhaus artists; art made up of simple squares and other geometric elements was essentially prohibited in the Japanese art tradition. In Japan, Tadasky experimented with many forms of art, including representational painting, but by the time he applied for scholarships to the United States, he was experimenting with simple circles in larger constructions. Tadasky came to the United States in 1961 on a scholarship to study at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Tadasky's first stop was New York where he decided to stay. He soon won a modern art scholarship competition at the Art Students League and the prize of free tuition enabled him to stay in New York and rent a studio loft in which he worked. At this time, Tadasky sustained himself financially with carpentry work. Later he transferred to the art school of the Brooklyn Museum after Tadasky impressed the director enough to get a scholarship to work entirely in his own studio in Manhattan. In the early 1960s, Tadasky began to focus on compositions of concentric circles that trigger optical color interaction and explore sensory stimulation. They are highly calculated and precisely created, consisting of thin, pulsating, vibrantly colored lines that seem to whirl and radiate outward from the center. Shortly after arriving in New York, Tadasky set out to create tools that would aid him to create the perfect rings he envisioned. Through painstaking solitary experimentation in his studio, Tadasky developed a special wheel for his circles and adapted it into a drum for vertical lines. For brushwork, he used traditional Japanese brushes best suited to the fine detail of his paintings. Philip Johnson was among Tadasky's earliest supporters, purchasing a painting...

A painting by Tadasky (Tadasuke) Kuwayama. "B-139" is an abstract painting executed in circles of red, blue and yellow by Op Artist Tadasky (Tadasuke) Kuwayama. Signed, verso, "Tadas...