Kunio Izuka (1939-2020)
Mr. Kunio Izuka, our beloved late president of JAANY who has been well-known having shown his artworks with anti-nuclear themes. However, what about his work with the theme of New York? He chose, survived, loved and enjoyed NY to live and work for his life and art creations. In this Memorial Corner of Mr. Izuka, with introducing some of the body of his NY themed artwork, I close up to his eyes as a Japanese artist being a New Yorker, in which each viewer could get a snapshot of his life of NY. Imagine what he saw, felt and expressed though his voices in your eyes.
Izuka was born in 1939 in Tokyo and came to the U.S. in 1961. After studying at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, he moved to New York in 1964.
He taught sculpture at the Art Students League of New York in 1968. In 1972, he founded the Japanese Artists Association of New York, JAANY, and became its first president. He returned as president of JAANY in 2013, leading the organization up until his illness this year.
After coming to the U.S., Izuka learned that his father, whom he had never met before this time, had been a survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. This shocking fact was the driving force that compelled him to create art with anti-nuclear themes. His major shows include the solo exhibitions Anti-Nuclear at the United Nations Headquarters in 1995 and To My Atom-Bombed Father at the International Peace Museum of Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan, in 2007. Aside from these, he had numerous solo and group shows domestically and internationally throughout his life.
Collections of his work include Nagasaki International Peace Hall; International Peace Museum of Ritsumeikan University; Museum of Modern Art, Gunma; Tomioka City Museum; Utsunomiya City Museum; and Time Warner Communications, Inc. He received the Konju Hosho award from the Japanese Government twice.
