Lot 716
  • 716

Yamaguchi Takeo

Estimate
650,000 - 850,000 HKD
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Description

  • Yamaguchi Takeo
  • Keitai (Form)
  • oil on board
signed, titled and dated 1961 in Japanese on a label affixed to the reverse, framed

Provenance

Otsuka Bijutsu, Japan
Acquired by the present owner from the above

Condition

This work is in good condition with minor craquelures at the lower left centre and pinpoint surface accretions at the centre. No evidence of restoration under UV examination.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Catalogue Note

This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by Takeo Yamaguchi Artwork Registration Association

MOVEMENT

The shapes I paint should move as though living and breathing. - Yamaguchi Takeo1

Keitai (Lot 716), whose Han title translates as "shape; form" or "shape; state", is a quintessential composition from Yamaguchi's distinctive mid-career period. Spanning the late 1950s and early 1960s, the signature style is defined by idiosyncratic geometric shapes rendered in ochre yellow or Venetian red suspended within deep black voids. The forms, imbued with palpable sculptural presence on account of layered impasto, seem to float, drift, or even rotate ever so slightly--mysterious and ethereal like creatures from space.

The illusory movement generated from Keitai exudes a chromatic vitality akin to that of Josef Albers' seminal series Homage to the Square, which began in the same decade. The German-American artist similarly employed knife instead of brush and a rigorous, disciplined approach to composition. However, unlike Albers' uniform gradations of colour, Yamaguchi used a single shade of yellow--inspired by the soil of Southern China--against black, nevertheless still achieving depth via texture, illusion via structure, and movement via organic form.

Such an effect owes itself to both process and philosophy. Yamaguchi layered on at least seven to eight coatings of paint for each work, responding intuitively to each layer and permitting each shape to evolve with a life of its own. Critic Miki Tamon writes of Yamaguchi's process as thus: "As the thickness of the paint increases, the voice of the colour also increases. He listens attentively to that voice with his whole body and proceeds according to the demands of colour [...] sometimes [also] suppressing them. In that process the form is reborn through colour".2

Each final shape is thus organic, imbued with life and movement. The final form floats up, buoyed and enlivened by Yamaguchi's patient nurturing. Critic Asano Tōru summarizes: "If [Yamaguchi's] work is judged to be somehow Oriental, that is probably because he does not try to impose man-made cleverness towards nature into his works. Rather he tries to give shape, in accordance with the laws of natural form, exactly like the farmer working the earth, to things taken from nature, things widely expanding and overflowing, things towering and soaring upwards, things stable and unshakable, things usually in movement, and so on".3

1 Exh. cat. Yamaguchi Takeo and Horiuti Masakazu, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 1980, p. 20

2 Ibid, p. 243

3 Ibid, p. 244