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PAUL HORIUCHI
Paul Horiuchi was born in 1906, in the village of Oishi, near Mount Fuji, in Japan and was originally named Chikamasa Horiuchi. As a young man he studied traditional ink wash technique and was awarded second prize in a nationwide landscape competition. He immigrated to the US as a teenager in 1920. Upon landing in the states, Horiuchi was employed and worked with his father as a railroad worker in the West,
In 1934, he fell in love with Bernadette Suda on a visit to Seattle, and converted to Roman Catholicism after changing his first name to "Paul" in homage to the famous french artist Paul Cezanne. He and Bernadette married in 1935 and had two sons. He his painting skills continued to evolve, and In 1938 some of his works were included in exhibitions at the Oakland Art Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Art, and the Seattle Art Museum. The years during the second world war were filled with difficulty for Horiuchi and his family, until they finally moved to Seattle in 1946.
Through his close friend, Mark Tobey (1890 - 1976) Horiuchi became involved in the Northwest School, which shared the artist's interest in Eastern design and philosophy. While originally an oil painter, Horiuchi eventually shifted to the medium of collage, for which he is most well-known today. Employing patches of torn, hand-made and dyed paper, the artist's oeuvre is characterized by abstract compositions which favor large blocks of color over concrete symbolism. Although produced contemporaneously, his work is regarded as separate from the Color Field artists of the 1950s and 60s. Horiuchi described his collages as "attempts to produce areas of peace and serenity with which to balance the sensationalism [...] of our time."
In 1982, Horiuchi’s work was included in a show of Pacific Northwest artists at Osaka's National Museum of Art, along with art by George Tsutakawa, Guy Anderson, Morris Graves, Richard Gilkey, Kenneth Callahan, Leo Kenney, Philip McCracken, Mark Tobey, and other artists chosen for their interest in the Asian tradition.
Horiuchi's work can be seen around the world, including at the SF MOMA, the Seattle Art Museum, the Smithsonian Museum, the Cambridge Art Museum, and the Tokyo Museum of Modern Art. His most well known public piece, a 17 x 60 foot collage mural, can be seen at the Seattle Center amphitheater, in Seattle, WA.
At his memorial service at St. Paul Catholic Church in Seattle, the program contained the following quote from Horiuchi:
"I have always wanted to create something serene, the peace and serenity, the quality needed to balance the sensationalism in our surroundings today. Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I’m seeking beauty and truth in nature. This philosophy of mine hasn’t changed for the last 50 years."
The History of the Northwest School
The Northwest School emerged in the 1920s as a direct response to European modernism, which had been gaining popularity domestically since the turn of the century. Across the United States, abstract and conceptual styles were conglomerating around regional art markets, each representing their own form of a new American modernism. In Seattle, a group of artists using the natural imagery of the Pacific Northwest began to gain notoriety, identified by their subtle handling of the region’s earth tone color palette and lighting characteristics. They were known as the Northwest School. Though some artists eschewed the idea of a unified school in the Seattle / Skagit County region, art historians and journalists generally agree that a common aesthetic existed as early as 1930. This movement was led by a small group of artists, whom have since come to be known as “the big four”: Mark Tobey (1890-1976), Guy Anderson (1906-1998), Kenneth Callahan (1905-1986), and Morris Graves (1910-2001). In addition to a shared color palette and iconographic commonalities, the big four also explored certain Asian and Native American motifs, and were heavily influenced by burgeoning European styles, such as surrealism and cubism. The Northwest School was at its peak during the 1930s and 1940s, and boasted a vast and eclectic stable of artists. The work was distinctly regional in composition but was international in appeal. Exhibitions across the globe included the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art, and even the Louvre. The work of Northwest School artists is held in institutional collections around the world, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Tate in London, the MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Northwest Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
For additional information, visit:
Wikipedia
Densho Encyclopedia Information about Paul Horiuchi
Portland Art Museum
Seattle Art Museum
Book: Paul Horiuchi - East and West
HistoryLink.org - Biography
A Glimpse into the Life of Paul Horiuchi
Northwest Visionaries
Video Credit: Ken Levine
Enjoy this informative documentary video about the art of the Northwest, featuring the work of painters Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, Guy Anderson, and Paul Horiuchi by Seattle filmmaker Ken Levine.