HAZAMA Inosuke (1895-1977) was an artist who earned recognition, from his youth, in the Fusain-kai and in the Nika Association, both organizations of progressive Western-style painters. After two stays in France, he took part in the formation of the Issuikai and, for a time, provided training in painting at Bunka Gakuin and Tokyo University of the Arts. In his later years, he engaged passionately in creating overglaze-enameled ceramics. Along with his creative work, he made efforts to introduce Western art to Japan, editing books of Courbet’s and van Gogh’s works and translating collections of van Gogh’s letters. He also served as the coordinator of the first retrospective in Japan, in 1951, of the work of his teacher, Matisse, negotiating with the artist to make the exhibition happen. Of the works that Hazama, who was of well-to-do origins, collected for his own research, Matisse’s Collioure (1905) and Rousseau’s Quai d’Ivry (ca. 1907) are now in the Ishibashi Foundation Collection— examples of Hazama’s deep ties to our museum.

This exhibition presents 100 works: 83 works by Hazama, including oil paintings, prints, and ceramics, plus seventeen works with connections to the artist from our collection of Western paintings. Our goal in this, the first Hazama retrospective in Tokyo, is to introduce the many faces of this artist.