Kazuo Nakamura 1926 - 2002

Jerrold Morris Gallery, Toronto

Private Collection, Port Hope

Nakamura was in many ways the odd man out among Painters Eleven: quiet and shy, a non-smoker, non-drinker, non-womanizer, and a reticent conversationalist, he nevertheless attended all parties and meetings, all openings and gatherings. When Harold Town asked what he liked as much as everyone else liked drinking, partying, and chasing the ladies, he replied, after thinking about the question for a moment or two, 'Apples.'

What endeared Kaz, as most called him, to his friends and colleagues, was his singular and original way of thinking and painting. His work sprang from some source within him that was almost entirely abstract at birth. Alan Jarvis, the former Director of the National Gallery and himself a tolerable sculptor, when looking at one of Nakamura's paintings from this series in 1962 said, 'It is simply pure painting, nothing less, nothing more.' And so most of Nakamura's paintings are, even the complex number series paintings of his latest period.

Nakamura's world was informed by the history of art, by his fascination with science, physics, astronomy, mathematics, and numerous other realms of knowledge in which he immersed himself. His paintings and drawings reflect this diverse awareness of the world and of man's varied understanding of it. In a painting such as this, one is drawn into its complex but poised vortex of spaces, pigments, and monochromatic shadings and discovers a reflected and parallel world inside oneself.