Shozo Shimamoto

(Japanese, 1928–2013)

Shozo Shimamoto was a Japanese artist and co-founder of the post-WWII avant-garde movement Gutai. The Gutai group sought to utilize the ideas of cathartic performance and Abstract Expressionism to create its own inventive style of paintings and sculptures. Shimamato’s practice often involved throwing vases filled with paint at canvases, or simply slashing canvases with knives, thereby symbolically penetrating the usually revered picture plane. Born on January 22, 1928 in Osaka, Japan, he went on to study with the artist Jiro Yoshihara. Shimamoto’s works can be found in the collections of the Tate Gallery in London, the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art in Kobe, and many others. He died on January 25, 2013 in Osaka, Japan.