Hiroshi Furuyoshi

Courtesy the artist and Art Renewal Center

Born in Hiroshima, Japan in 1959, painter Hiroshi Furuyoshi vividly remembers being surrounded by paintings, calligraphy, tea utensils, books, and unusual items in his family’s antique store as a boy. Such memories would inspire many of Furuyoshi’s beloved paintings depicting children standing in front of bookshelves, often bursting with a variety of unusual and curious objects, as seen in Maya, a standout from Furuyoshi’s oeuvre. 

In his youth, Furuyoshi had a passion for history, taking an interest in the visual representation of historical events in manga and art books he discovered in his family’s shop. His parents were supportive of his artistic pursuits from a young age, particularly his mother, the daughter of a kimono dyer, who shared her son’s captivation with art. It was during this formative period that Furuyoshi began visiting museums and studying art history. Through these experiences he developed a love of traditional figurative painting, particularly Old Master paintings. 

Upon recommendation from a high school teacher in Hiroshima, Furuyoshi briefly attended the Kyoto Art Junior College before beginning his own pioneering experiments in representational art. Later, under the tutelage of artist Toshiro Aoki, who had spent many years living and working in Europe, Furuyoshi became fascinated with the techniques of seventeenth-century Dutch painters. In 1985, Furuyoshi entered an artwork into a competition organized by a Tokyo-based gallery. Within a year, he presented his first solo-exhibition of miniature canvases. Soon after, he relocated to Tokyo to pursue his artistic career, quickly sparking the interest of several galleries who began to exhibit his work. In search of an international audience, Furuyoshi began submitting paintings to the Art Renewal Center’s International Salon Competition, one of the largest competitions in the world dedicated to representational art. In 2005, the first year he entered, he was awarded “First Place Figurative,” and in 2009, he was awarded “Best in Show”.

The Art Renewal Center (ARC) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational foundation, founded in 1999, and dedicated to the appreciation and preservation of representational art and training techniques. ARC is the foremost and only vetting service for atelier and academy schools that focus on skill-based art methods, like those practiced by the Old Masters, while also incorporating modern day necessities, ensuring that the curriculum and quality of teacher and student’s work meet its strict standards to become ARC Approved™. The Art Renewal Center also holds the largest competition in the world dedicated to representational art, with its last competition receiving 5,000 entries from 83 countries and spanning six continents, with over 40 jurors, 11 categories, and over 180 awards and honorable mentions. Through partnerships with prestigious magazines, museums, and galleries, with live exhibitions and a strong online presence, the competition offers unique opportunities to representational artists around the globe. This past July, the 15th International ARC Salon Exhibition, which encompassed close to 100 works, debuted at Sotheby’s New York. A selection of 28 works from the show were auctioned in “Contemporary Realism: Important 21st Century Works,” hosted on sothebys.com. The show was extended through the holidays due to its popularity and high attendance rates. After the successful exhibition and sale at Sotheby’s New York, Sotheby’s is pleased to offer a selection of new works executed in a similar style in cooperation with the Art Renewal Center. 

Leading the revival of realism in the visual arts, the Art Renewal Center also hosts the largest online museum dedicated to representational art and includes works by Old Masters, 19th-century artists, 21st-century artists, as well as articles, letters, and other online resources. The ARC works with other like-minded organizations, artist groups, museums, schools, and publications, to provide a central news hub for the 21st Century Representational Art Movement.