ー IN 1945, NANKOKU HIDAI WROTE THE FIRST ABSTRACT WORK IN THE HISTORY OF CALLIGRAPHY . HIS ART OF LINE IMPACTED ON THE WORLD. HIS WORKS WERE COLLECTED BY SUCH PUBLIC MUSEUM AS MOMA. THIS SITE INTRODUCES THE WHOLE ACTIVITY OF NANKOKU. ー
After the death of Nankoku’s wife Shoha in 1972, his children and their friends gathered lively at the dinner table of Nankoku. It was customary for everyone to talk loudly about their likes and dislikes of food and alcohol, starting with stories about Nankoku's hardships in Europe and the United St
2． Nankoku's "Shin-Sen Works"In 1934, Nankoku graduated from the Printing and Crafts Department of Tokyo Koto Kogei Gakko (Tokyo Technological College, now Chiba University) and took a job with the Land Survey Department of the Army’s General Staff Office of Japan (currently renamed as Kokudo-Chri-I
The first abstract painting in the history of western fine arts was a watercolor painting by Kandinsky in 1910 (it is said to have been painted in 1913 in current research). The painting consisted of randomly scrawled lines and color patches on a 50×65cm screen, and so we don't know what it depicts
Nankoku Hidai and Shoha Hidai were well-known as a happily married couple in the world of calligraphy. They had the zeal and the inquiring minds to calligraphy in common, though their expressions were different from each other.They both exchanged the criticism of each other’s work.
However, it was the appearance of Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) that became a force for the ideas of "existence" to spread all over the world and appeal strongly to young people. Sartre studied E. Husserl’s phenomenology and Heidegger’s philosophy and published his philosophical novel “La Nausée (Nausea)" in 1938.
In a pamphlet called "Mé" in 1957, a document clearly expresses Nankoku's stance on the avant-garde calligraphy. It is an essay that discusses the inevitable emergence of avant-garde calligraphy after the defeat of Japan while organizing the characteristics of the calligraphy with a tradition
From mid-December 1977, Nankoku Hidai visited in the United States for the ninth time. His purpose was to investigate about 1,000 species of old calligraphic books of monuments and rubbings (formerly included in the Mitsui Bunko Collections) at the East Asian Library, University of California Berkeley.
The photo on the top page of Nankoku Official Site (HP) is a photograph of Nankoku's performance by a big brush in Middelburg of the Netherlands on June 23, 1979. At this time, Nankoku was 67 years old. His trip to the Netherlands was the second time since 1964, when he traveled from New York to Eur
On October 1, 1964, an exhibition of “Contemporary Japanese Painting " was held at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, a prestigious gallery of American museums. Since 1954, the Corcoran Gallery of Art has held biennial exhibitions of contemporary art from around the world. In the same way as
Shortly after a big-brush performance in New York on May 1, 1965, with Alechinsky, Ting, Sonderborg and others, Nankoku hurriedly headed to Europe (May 5). After his one-man show at Mi Chou Gallery in January, he began to work vigorously toward his activities of calligraphy in Europe. Although overs
In 1964, Nankoku quietly celebrated the New Year at his home in Yokohama after a long absence. From the end of 1959 to 1963, his wife, Shoha had held twice “the Avant-Garde Calligraphy Exhibition in Memory of Tenrai Hidai" on Nankoku’s visits to the U.S. two times.
Founding “The Japan Association of Avant-garde Calligraphers” in 1957 (2)On August 10, 1957, about 70 calligraphers assembled at the temporary auditorium of the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, and the general meeting for the establishment of the "Japan Association of Avant-Garde Calligraphers " was h
Founding “The Japan Association of Avant-garde Calligraphers” in 1957（１）On August 15 in 1945, Japan lost a long and disastrous war and people were shrouded in confusion and uncertain anxiety. Among them, some people emancipated themselves from the traditional values and fettered ideas, and projected
New York New York One-man Show In March 1963, according to the letter from Mi Chou Gallery in New York, many citizens were looking forward seeing Nankoku’s new works, so Nankoku became increasingly willing to visit to the United States again.In late September 1963, Nankoku decided to fly out t
At the end of November 1959, Nankoku visited the United States of America as his first trip to the foreign country. His stay in the United States lasted for one year and five months until April 1961. He was scheduled to stay there further, but due to his wife's(小葩) illness, he returned home in a hurry.
Another purpose of Nankoku's visit to the United States was to ask whether the calligraphy as his abstract art could not be accepted by Westerners from exotic interests, but could be positioned as a global line art. For this reason, from his first visit to the U.S., he was taking various steps toward the goal of holding a one-man show in New York
Nankoku's first visit to the United States was over a span of 1year and 4 months, from November 26, 1959 to April 1961. Nankoku was invited as a lecturer on Chinese and Japanese calligraphy at Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design (*1) in SanFrancisco.
There is a copy of one record jacket. Nankoku‘s work is used on the cover of the jacket, titled“The Sounds of Japan”.
In January 1965, during Nankoku’s one-man show at the Me Chew(Mi Chou) Gallery in New York, Elise Grilli introduced this one-man show and wrote an article. This article appeared on the New York Times and received a great response.
The first report of Nankoku’s activities presents his witty essay about the essence of “Sho”in the Asahi Shimbun dated August 1 in 1961, based on his experiences in the first visit to the United States.
