Skip to main content

Kikuo Saito Art

Japanese, 1939-2016
With ties to the Color Field tradition, Saito’s color landscapes are a richly infused exhibition of dragged and poured paint, often with bold flecks of color, animated calligraphic line, and stenciled lettering. Influenced by his work in theatre, many of his compositions are directly related to the movements and lights found on stage, as is the case with Crocodile Boogie. Japanese born and trained Kikuo Saito (1939–2016) moved to New York in 1966 where he worked as a carpenter while acting as studio assistant to Helen Frankenthaler, Kenneth Noland, and Larry Poons. Saito had long association with La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York creating costumes, set design, and directing. His productions drew inspiration from traditional and avant-garde Japanese theatre. Saito's paintings and are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Aldrich Contemporary Museums, and numerous private and corporate collections. KinoSaito, a non-profit museum and art space in Verplanck, New York, opened in 2020, in honor of Saito's interdisciplinary practice and spirit.
to
5
Overall Width
to
Overall Height
to
5
3
2
4
4
1
4
1
1
1
1
5
8,227
2,805
1,654
1,312
1
4
5
Artist: Kikuo Saito
Onion Train, Large Abstract Silkscreen by Kikuo Saito
By Kikuo Saito
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Kikuo Saito, Japanese (1939 - 2016) Title: Onion Train Year: 1979 Medium: Silkscreen, signed and numbered in pencil Edition Size: 225 Size: 42 x 29.5 inches [106.68 x 74.93 cm]
Category

1970s Abstract Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Screen

Beggar's Ladder, Large Abstract Geometric Screenprint by Kikuo Saito
By Kikuo Saito
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Kikuo Saito, Japanese (1939 - 2016) Title: Beggar's Ladder Year: 1980 Medium: Silkscreen, Signed and Numbered in Pencil Edition: 160 Size: 42 in. x 29.5 in. (106.68 cm x 74.9...
Category

1980s Abstract Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Screen

Pink Square, Large Abstract Silkscreen by Kikuo Saito
By Kikuo Saito
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Kikuo Saito, Japanese (1939 - 2016) Title: Pink Square Year: 1979 Medium: Silkscreen, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 225 Size: 42 x 29.5 inches [106.68 x 74.93 cm]
Category

1970s Abstract Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Screen

Spanish Ghost
By Kikuo Saito
Located in Austin, TX
Waterline Fine Art, Austin, TX is pleased to present the following work: Acrylic on canvas. Signed, dated, and titled verso. 52.25 x 52.75 in. 54 x 54.25 in. (framed) Custom framed in a maple hardwood floater. Provenance Salander O’Reilly Galleries, New York Private Collection, Connecticut Provenance Estate of Samuel Feinstein...
Category

1980s Color-Field Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Paper Lake, Large Abstract Expressionist Screenprint by Kikuo Saito
By Kikuo Saito
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Kikuo Saito, Japanese (1939 - 2016) Title: Paper Lake Year: 1979 Medium: Silkscreen with Collage, Signed in Pencil l.r. Edition: 160 Size: 42 x 29.5 inches (124.46 x 74.93 cm)
Category

1970s Abstract Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Screen

Related Items
Untitled, Jasper Johns. Colorful rainbow hatching on parchment
By Jasper Johns
Located in New York, NY
This print features Johns's exuberant hatching in orange, white, bright green, and purple atop collaged newsprint. Printing on translucent parchment makes the image particularly vibr...
Category

1970s Abstract Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Screen

David Roth 'Untitled 1' Signed, Limited Edition Geometric Abstract Print
By David Roth
Located in San Rafael, CA
David Roth (b. 1942) Untitled 1, 1979 Silkscreen in colors on wove paper Edition 11/150 Each signed, numbered, and dated in pencil along lower edge Image 22 3/4in H x 22 3/4 in L In...
Category

1970s Abstract Geometric Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Screen

In a French Restaurant (Knoedler Gallery) SIGNED poster colorful expressionist
By (After) Howard Hodgkin
Located in New York, NY
A large scale abstract interior scene with bold black, white, red, pink, green, white and orange patterns and brushstrokes, based on an abstract oil painting. Pink and purple dots, y...
Category

1980s Abstract Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Screen

Josef Albers, Study to Homage to the Square, 1977
By (after) Josef Albers
Located in Torino, IT
JOSEF ALBERS, Bottrop 1888 - New Haven 1976 Homage to the Square, Renewed Hope, 1977 (no. 5) Color d'après silkscreen, mm. 207x207. (from 1962 oil on masonite). Perfect copy, publis...
Category

1970s Abstract Geometric Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Screen

Color field modern contemporary painting canvas framed blue orange turquoise
Located in Buffalo, NY
A modern contemporary color field painting by Edouard D. Louis. Titled Aqua Sunset and housed in a contemporary natural wood frame presentation Measuring 30" (h) x 24" (w) unframed.
Category

Early 2000s Color-Field Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Josef Albers Study to Homage to the Square, 1977
By (after) Josef Albers
Located in Torino, IT
JOSEF ALBERS, Bottrop 1888 - New Haven 1976 Study to Homage to the Square Yes Sir, 1977 (no.8) Color d'après silkscreen, mm. 207x207. (from 1962 oil on masonite). Perfect copy, publ...
Category

1970s Abstract Geometric Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Screen

Josef Albers, Study to Homage to the Square, 1977
By (after) Josef Albers
Located in Torino, IT
JOSEF ALBERS, Bottrop 1888 - New Haven 1976 Homage to the Square, Grisaille and Patina, 1977 (no. 6) Color d'après silkscreen, mm. 207x207. (from 1962 oil on masonite). Perfect copy...
Category

1970s Abstract Geometric Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Screen

Josef Albers, Study to Homage to the Square, 1977
By (after) Josef Albers
Located in Torino, IT
JOSEF ALBERS, Bottrop 1888 - New Haven 1976 Study to Homage to the Square R-I d-5, 1977 (n.1) Serigrafia d’après a colori, mm. 207x207. (dall’olio su masonite del 1969). Perfetto es...
Category

1970s Abstract Geometric Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Screen

Blue and Green Abstract
By Claudia Sisemore
Located in Salt Lake City, UT
"Blue and Green Abstract" by Claudia Sisemore, acylic on canvas, 43.5 x 46 inches, $4,800. "I have a vague idea of what I am going to paint. I...
Category

1970s Color-Field Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Merging Darkness
By Friedel Dzubas
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Friedel Dzubas (1915-1994) was a Berlin-born, American abstract painter and a key artist associated with both the New York School and the Color Field movement. Dzubas studied art i...
Category

1970s Color-Field Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Merging Darkness
Merging Darkness
$21,250
H 6.5 in W 6.5 in
Holi powder Tantra painting #4 - Colorful abstract tantric stain painting
Located in Philadelphia, PA
Holi powder Tantra painting #4 - Colorful abstract tantric stain painting, acrylic and powder on raw canvas by contemporary artist Elisa Niva 42 inche...
Category

2010s Color-Field Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Cotton Canvas, Acrylic

Souvenir, Howard Hodgkin: large scale black white gray abstract interior scene
By Howard Hodgkin
Located in New York, NY
Very large scale black and white abstract interior scene with dots, lines, brushstrokes, paint daubs, fingerprints, squares and rectangles. Striking print to hang in contemporary, modern and minimalist spaces. While British pop artists such as David Hockney and Patrick Caulfield numbered amongst Howard Hodgkin's circle of friends, Hodgkin's work is more painterly, expressionist, and abstract. Paper 45 x 55 in. / 114.3 x 139.7 cm. Souvenir by Howard Hodgkin. Screenprint on Arches aquarelle mould-made paper. Signed by the artist with initials and dated 80 in pencil lower center, numbered in pencil lower left. This bold Howard Hodgkin print layers five shades of black, with a wide variety of marks including some from the artist’s fingerprints and hand. Scribbles and lines of grey loosely define what could be an interior space with furniture. As is typical of his prints, there is a sense of space, and of the passage of time, expressed through shapes that seem to recede through the picture, deep black shades and, unusually for Hodgkin’s work, the white of the paper showing through. The last photograph displays these rich surface textures on the sheet at an angle. Catalogue reference: Elizabeth Knowles...
Category

Late 20th Century Abstract Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Screen

Previously Available Items
Spanish Gray
By Kikuo Saito
Located in New York, NY
Kikuo Saito Spanish Gray, 2010 oil on board 10.50h x 8.50w in
Category

2010s Abstract Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Oil

"Orange Tent" Kikuo Saito, Color Field Abstract Expressionism, Japanese-American
By Kikuo Saito
Located in New York, NY
Kikuo Saito Orange Tent, 1987 Signed, titled and dated on the reverse Acrylic on canvas 49 x 52 inches Provenance: Southam Family, Montreal (acquired directly from the artist in the late 1980s) Private Collection, by descent Oeno Gallery, Ontario, Canada Kikuo Saito (1939 – 2016) was a Japanese-born American abstract painter with ties to the Color Field movement and Lyrical abstraction. A former assistant to Helen Frankenthaler, Kenneth Noland, and Larry Poons, Saito's work infuses richly saturated colorscapes with delicately drawn lines. Saito was the creator of sui generis theatre and dance events, collaborating with innovative directors and choreographers Robert Wilson, Peter Brook, Jerome Robbins, and dancer and choreographer Eva Maier, to whom he was married for several decades. His productions combined wordless drama in the poetic frameworks of light, costumes, music, and dance, most of which he devised and directed himself. Kikuo Saito was born in Tokyo in 1939. He began painting when he was 17 years old, and worked for 3 years as a proctor and studio technician at the workshop of Sensei Itoh, an established Japanese painter. During this time, Saito gained an understanding of both the traditional arts of Japan as well as contemporary movements such as the Gutai Group. He also had an interest in the burgeoning New York City art world and movements such as Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, Color Field, and Pop Art. Saito moved to New York in 1966 at the age of 27. The journey across the United States to New York provided him a chance meeting with Ellen Stewart, founder of La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, whom he would later describe as his American mother. Once in New York, Saito worked with Stewart at La MaMa and was instrumental in bringing Japanese avant-garde dramatist Shuji Terayama to La MaMa in 1980. In his early years in New York, Saito balanced painting with theatre, supporting himself with carpentry and working on loft build-outs in Soho. The composition of many of Saito's paintings was significantly influenced by and in dialogue with the geography of his theatre productions. Saito's dualistic nature took material form in the interplay between the collaborative theatre and the private realm of the painting studio. Art critic Karen Wilkin wrote that "if we are attentive, we discover that characters from his stage pieces have been reincarnated as abstract configurations within his paintings, reborn as the records of animated gestures that retain the individuality of their sources." A commonality in the entire body of Saito's work, both on stage or on canvas, focuses on written signs...
Category

1980s Abstract Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

"Seven Causeways, " Kikuo Saito, Abstract Expressionism, Lyrical Abstraction
By Kikuo Saito
Located in New York, NY
Kikuo Saito Seven Causeways, 1977 Signed and dated on the reverse Acrylic on canvas 22 x 93 inches Provenance: Viart Corporation, New York Private Collection, Connecticut (acquired from the above) Private Collection, Groton, Connecticut (acquired from the above) Kikuo Saito (1939 – 2016) was a Japanese-born American abstract painter with ties to the Color Field movement and Lyrical abstraction. A former assistant to Helen Frankenthaler, Kenneth Noland, and Larry Poons, Saito's work infuses richly saturated colorscapes with delicately drawn lines. Saito was the creator of sui generis theatre and dance events, collaborating with innovative directors and choreographers Robert Wilson, Peter Brook...
Category

1970s Abstract Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Wind Mil
By Kikuo Saito
Located in New York, NY
Kikuo Saito Wind Mill, 2009 Acrylic On Canvas 47.25h x 61w in
Category

Early 2000s Abstract Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Acrylic

Wind Mil
Wind Mil
H 47.25 in W 61 in
Blue Ivory
By Kikuo Saito
Located in New York, NY
Kikuo Saito Blue Ivory, 2015 Acrylic on canvas 51.75h x 46.25w in
Category

2010s Abstract Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Acrylic

Blue Ivory
Blue Ivory
H 51.75 in W 46.25 in
Crocodile Boogie, abstract contemporary Asian work
By Kikuo Saito
Located in Greenwich, CT
A dramatic abstract by a rising artist. The Asian an Post War influences make this a sophisticated and sexy work for any interior. It has deep rich color but is not dark and it bri...
Category

1980s Contemporary Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Oil

Cohan's Stay
By Kikuo Saito
Located in New York, NY
Kikuo Saito Cohan's Stay, 1979 oil on canvas 75.25h x 77.50w in
Category

1970s Abstract Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Oil

Cohan's Stay
Cohan's Stay
H 75.25 in W 77.5 in
Sugar Moon
By Kikuo Saito
Located in New York, NY
Kikuo Saito Sugar Moon, 2011 Oil On Canvas 53.75h x 71.38w in
Category

2010s Abstract Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Acrylic

Sugar Moon
H 54 in W 72 in
Blue Talia
By Kikuo Saito
Located in New York, NY
Kikuo Saito Blue Talia, 2009 Acrylic on canvas 98h x 51.50w in
Category

Early 2000s Abstract Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Acrylic

Onion Train, Large Abstract Silkscreen by Kikuo Saito
By Kikuo Saito
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Kikuo Saito, Japanese (1939 - 2016) Title: Onion Train Year: 1979 Medium: Silkscreen, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 225 Size: 42 x 29.5 inches [106.68 x 74.93 cm]
Category

1970s Abstract Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Screen

Sea Caravan
By Kikuo Saito
Located in New York, NY
Kikuo Saito Sea Caravan, 2012 Oil On Canvas 82h x 54.50w in
Category

2010s Abstract Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Oil

Blue Fisherman
By Kikuo Saito
Located in New York, NY
Kikuo Saito Blue Fisherman, 2007 Oil On Canvas 30.80h x 64w in
Category

Early 2000s Abstract Kikuo Saito Art

Materials

Oil

Kikuo Saito art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Kikuo Saito art available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Kikuo Saito in paint, canvas, fabric and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the abstract style. Not every interior allows for large Kikuo Saito art, so small editions measuring 30 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Michael David, Friedel Dzubas, and Katsunori Hamanishi. Kikuo Saito art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $1,200 and tops out at $148,500, while the average work can sell for $60,000.

Artists Similar to Kikuo Saito

Recently Viewed

View All