Wild Growth: Ralph Iwamoto, Surrealist Works from 1955

RALPH IWAMOTO

WILD GROWTH:

RALPH IWAMOTO

SURREALIST WORKS FROM 1955

23 MARCH–15 APRIL 2023

ESSAY BY JEFFREY WECHSLER

Over the decades, the historic division of our gallery has become known for not only reinstating artists to their past renown, but also for unearthing unusual discoveries which bring new life and contemporary relevance to scholarly discussions of a movement or time. When we first viewed the work of Ralph Iwamoto, we knew immediately that his story was one we wanted to tell. This exhibition, aptly titled, Wild Growth: Ralph Iwamoto, Surrealist Works from 1955 presents a singular aspect of the artist’s fascinating career.

After witnessing the bombing of Pearl Harbor in his native Hawaii, Iwamoto went on to serve as a translator in the Counterintelligence Corps Detachment station in Alliedoccupied Japan. Subsequently, under the GI Bill he moved to New York and attended classes at the Art Students League. It was in the urban setting of Manhattan that Iwamoto created the evocative compositions presented in this show that recall his early life in the tropical environment of Hawaii. This series of eleven paintings combines Iwamoto’s bold assimilation of the tenets of surrealism with his highly-personalized imagery. These canvases represent the essence of the island foliage through a surrealist mode, and through the painter’s deeply-rooted memories. The plant references, biomorphic shapes, and anthropomorphic forms are uniquely his own artistic vision. Through the exquisite richness of his palette, the ebullience of the flora depicted immediately captures the viewer’s attention. The paintings reference the essence of the island foliage through surrealist playfulness and through the painter’s deep-seeded memories. There is profound significance to these early works within the artist’s oeuvre, and we believe that they deserve to be highlighted as an independent group.

Once again we are indebted to Jeffrey Wechsler for bringing another compelling artist to our attention. His catalogue essay on Iwamoto is astute and informative and as always we are happy for his participation. Many thanks go to the artist’s family — his niece, Miya Maysent, and his sister, Bernice Buxbaum, have been instrumental in sharing biographical information and archival items with us. Their generosity in assisting with the project and their endless commitment to the Iwamoto’s legacy have aided us to understand the complex person beyond the paintings.

We are delighted to announce our representation of the Estate of Ralph Iwamoto. We hope this initial exhibition will awaken curiosity about the artist. It is our aim to continue our exploration of his body of work, tracing the evolution of the painter’s exceptional style of abstraction.

Hollis C. Taggart

Debra V. Pesci

In 1955, Ralph Iwamoto created, as he described it, “a body of work involving flora and fauna, surrealistic-like images.” Iwamoto was an artist who preferred to work in series, developing and carefully exploring particular ideas and formats, often in great numbers. This early series appears to be the first significant representation of this approach, and its coherence of concept and execution indicates the immediate sources of its origins, while foreshadowing Iwamoto’s future expressions of serial styles. Iwamoto was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, and after service in World War II, traveled to New York City for art education, which included stints at the Art Students League from 1948 to 1949 and 1951 to 1953. Although New York and its burgeoning art scene made a great impact on the young artist, the natural environment of Hawaii, so different from urban Manhattan, maintained a powerful place in his thoughts. The visual memories of the unique and rampant vegetation of Hawaii came to be fused with Iwamoto’s interest in the fantastical world of surrealism, and the imagery of the flora/fauna paintings emerged.

The heliconia (fig. 1) and bird-of-paradise (fig. 2) are two flowers with particularly intricate and colorful blooms; their complex shapes translated well, via imaginative distortions and extensions, into the realm of organic fantasy. Like many young artists, Iwamoto took various jobs to support himself while starting a career. One such employment opportunity was especially appropriate; in a delightful twist of fate, Iwamoto found work at a store in New York specializing in native Hawaiian goods and flowers that was named “Orchids of Hawaii.” There he was able to have close contact with many types of orchids (fig. 3), which are flowers that exhibit a diversity of unusual forms, as well as other blooming plants.

As noted above, Iwamoto acknowledged surrealism as an influence on his early artistic tendencies. In New York, he had the opportunity to go beyond engaging with surrealism though illustrations in books and magazines, now viewing it directly in galleries and museums. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) was an important venue for the display of surrealism, and Iwamoto has mentioned that he appreciated the availability to personally view surrealist art that the museum provided. As it happened, the museum would also figure among the many places that Iwamoto would include in his peripatetic search for jobs; from 1957 to 1960, he worked as a guard at MoMA. Of course, this period was a few years after he painted the flora/fauna images, but his visits to MoMA predated his years of employment there, and Iwamoto already had the opportunity to study the collection.

When writing about his flora/fauna paintings, Iwamoto noted three artists in particular who inspired him: Wifredo Lam, Rufino Tamayo, and Pablo Picasso. It is significant that Iwamoto listed Lam as the first among this trio; while they all created imaginative scenes

Ralph Iwamoto in Reno, Nevada, c. 1946. Courtesy of the Estate of Ralph Iwamoto

which included somewhat abstracted but recognizable forms, Lam in particular featured allusions to tropical landscapes, with the island environment of his native Cuba acting as a natural parallel to Iwamoto’s Hawaiian background. Lam’s most famous painting is probably The Jungle (La Jungla), due to its acquisition by the Museum of Modern Art, where it was displayed in 1945 soon after its acquisition and has been on frequent view. Indeed, it was often prominently displayed in the museum entrance area, where its large size and strange, dense subject matter of distorted and fragmented plant and human forms could make an immediate impact on visitors. In The Jungle, one finds various segments of human anatomy, many totemic in style and shape, emerging from a leafy thicket of plants, including bamboo (fig. 4). These are rendered in rich colors, including many shades of green, with bright accents of red, pink, and yellow. The tropical atmosphere and mysterious entities populating this scene could certainly inspire Iwamoto’s similar interests. However, one major visual characteristic was shared by all of Iwamoto’s stated trio of influence: the embrace of Cubism. Picasso — the co-founder of the style — as well as Lam and Tamayo tended to flatten their imagery, creating intersecting planes or simply laying down thoroughly two-dimensional areas of paint. These modern painters’ use of planar imagery was important to Iwamoto, but they likely acted as examples to further bolster another important visual influence that had already led Iwamoto’s compositions to similar formal techniques: aspects of his Japanese artistic heritage. Iwamoto was an admirer of ukiyo-e prints by such masters as Hokusai, Hiroshige, and Kunisada (fig. 5). In these prints, three-dimensionality is rejected in favor of an overall, insistent flatness that pervades and unifies the composition. Also, the objects and individuals in these works are often rendered with sharp, prominent black outlines. These dark peripheries can be seen throughout the flora/fauna paintings, and prominently so, as in Wild Growth (pl. 9) and Bird of Paradise (pl. 10). Besides ukiyo-e prints, Iwamoto also admired the flat decorative components and abstracted nature-derived imagery within Japanese applied arts and folk traditions. Perhaps these might figure into the inventive forms of the

Fig. 1

Heliconia caribaea, Parc National de la Guadeloupe (forêt domaniale de douville), 2017. Photo by Filo gèn’

Fig. 2

Strelitzia reginae or Bird-of-Paradise, 2007.

Photo by Brocken Inaglory

Fig. 3

Anoectochilus sandvicensis, or Honohono a Kanaloa.

Photo by G. Daida

simplified heads and faces that surmount some of the artist’s hybrid beings. In Green Moss Figure (pl. 7) and Rain Forest Images (pl. 11), eyes are suggested merely by white dots connected by thin lines, somewhat like simplified masks; the latter painting has a head sporting flame-like shapes, suggesting elongated petals that have morphed into windblown tresses of hair or a long droopy mustache.

Nevertheless, beyond the formal considerations of Cubism, certain common concepts and visual qualities of surrealism form the basis of the content of this series of paintings, continuing and elaborating upon venerable traditions of surrealist imagery. Surrealism is generally divided into two major styles: naturalistic and organic. Whereas the former style presents realistic rendering of impossible scenes, like those of Salvador Dalí, organic surrealism partakes of imagery that is often semi-abstract and seeks to visualize or suggest the vitalism and internal organic dynamics of living things. Much of the art of Joan Miró, Andre Masson, and Max Ernst can be categorized in this way, although each artist varied the specifics of their styles and imagery in several ways over the course of their careers. In particular, a few works by Masson explore territory comparable to that of Iwamoto, in terms of clearly combining imagery identifiable as plant and animal, such as his The Metamorphosis of Lovers and Goethe or the Metamorphosis of Plants. Organic surrealists also created imaginative depictions of cutaway views of animals or plants (a favored Iwamoto motif) and suggestions of circulatory or nervous systems. Interest in the inner vitalism of organisms and nature in general, represented with semi-abstract techniques or invented vegetal and animal-like forms, was very much present in New York in the late 1940s through the 1950s, and can be seen in work by Mark Rothko, Arshile Gorky, William Baziotes, Theodoros Stamos, Gerome Kamrowski, and the Chilean-born Roberto Matta.

In Iwamoto’s 1955 series, one perceives an approach to this theme in a manner that comprehends the overall properties of organic surrealism, but filters it through a set of highly individual sources, such as the artist’s Hawaiian experience, and original stylistic methods. These include creating one or two large figural forms that stand upright, dominating the composition. Generally easily understood as humanoid, the

Fig. 4. Wifredo Lam, The Jungle (La Jungla), 1943. Gouache on paper mounted on canvas, 94 1/4 × 90 1/2 in. (239.4 × 229.9 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Inter-American Fund, 140.1945

figures are fitted with internal shapes or external extensions that mimic vegetal growths, and even sometimes blend into accompanying forms, as if merging, or perhaps dividing, as might an amoeba. (An interesting variation is seen in Bird of Paradise, in which the flower, so iconic of the tropics and highly complex in shape, is given the central role, with a vaguely animal-like form rising from it.) Several figures have prominent, if partial, skeletal frameworks, with spines, ribs, pelvises, and upper leg bones; such paintings include Polynesian Plant Goddess (pl. 5) and Green Moss Figure. In a bow to one of surrealism’s favored subjects, Iwamoto often alludes to sexuality, albeit via imagery that is made somewhat more subtle by its partial transference to the plant kingdom (and the logical reference to the natural abundance of Hawaii). At mid-level of many figures, an asterisk-like set of five to eight thin lines suggests a navel, site of the umbilical cord, or female sexual organs, as in Hybrid Figuration (pl. 6) and Daphne of the Jungle (pl. 2). The latter work also provides a particularly good example of how Iwamoto could reach beyond standard surrealist sources to devise an original image. By adapting Daphne, the woman of Greek myth who was transformed into a tree, Iwamoto finds a perfect analogy to his realm of human/plant hybrids, which often seem to be caught in a transitional moment of physical change. Indeed, in perhaps the most famous image of this legend, the marble sculpture by the Italian Baroque artist Bernini, Daphne’s (fig. 6) change is most prominent in her hands and forearms, and this motif is carried forward in Iwamoto’s Daphne.

When portraying lush tropical vegetation, the usage of a bright, varied color palette would be expected to fully convey the rich visual spectacle found in such an environment, and Iwamoto delivers this in an impressive, unabashed fashion. The paintings put forward a vast range of hues, covering the spectrum thoroughly and incrementally, offering many tonalities and saturations of color. The necessary green of vegetation is rendered in many variations, from pale to glowing to somber. The far end of the spectrum is represented with rich indigos and violets, as well as mauve, lilac, and purple, adding a further complex exoticism. In terms of Iwamoto’s output over his full career, it may be noted that this acceptance and mastery of a panoply of colors remained a significant aspect of his paintings. Although his later work turned to geometric abstraction, including many works restricted to black and white, a large number of Iwamoto’s geometric works are memorable for their inclusion of many colors, sometimes interacting in compositions as active and effulgent as any jungle scene. Some even include greens and browns, rather unusual

Fig. 5. Utagawa Kunisada, Print, Edo period (1615–1868). Woodblock print; ink and color on paper, 14 3/8 × 9 7/8 in. (image). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Museum Accession, JP1092.13

in geometric art, but reminiscent of the organic colors of vegetation and soil. Thus, the flora/fauna series, as Iwamoto’s first group of fully mature works, acts as an artistic seedbed of sorts, a nourishing foundation for the growth and flowering of his long career.

For example, in Lowly Splendor (pl. 8), a human/ plant hybrid couple stands tall, sufficiently enwrapped in a skin of foliage as to suggest a vegetal Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. But perhaps the original sin of the garden has already, as it were, come to fruition. Wedged between the couple, at the proper height for physical interaction, a roseate bloom bursts forth, a straightforward yet pictorially poetic symbol of procreation and the fecundity of nature. The image is thus simultaneously innocent and knowing, an acknowledgment of the overarching natural state that best represents Hawaii. Ultimately, it is part of a series indicating the appearance of a talented, thoughtful artist blending a Hawaiian heritage with European and American modernism — a worthy first step for Ralph Iwamoto, an artist who will soon develop different styles and series within a long career with a coherent, intriguing, and successfully realized personal vision.

JEFFREY WECHSLER

Jeffrey Wechsler was Senior Curator at the Zimmerli Art Museum of Rutgers University for over thirty years until his retirement. He has specialized in lesser-known aspects of American art, organizing such exhibitions as Asian Traditions/ Modern Expressions: Asian American Artists and Abstract Expressionism, 1945–1970 and Surrealism and American Art, 1931–1947

Fig. 6 Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Apollo and Daphne (detail), 1624. Marble. Galleria Borghese, Rome

PLATE 1

APPARITION OF A BUD

1955, oil on canvas, 44 × 32 in. (111.8 × 81.3 cm)

PLATE 2

DAPHNE OF THE JUNGLE

1955, oil on canvas, 44 × 32 in. (111.8 × 81.3 cm)

PLATE 3

MONUMENT TO NATURE

1955, oil on canvas, 44 × 32 in. (111.8 × 81.3 cm)

PLATE 4

ABORIGINAL GROWTH

1955, oil on canvas, 44 × 32 in. (111.8 × 81.3 cm)

PLATE 5

POLYNESIAN PLANT GODDESS

1955, oil on canvas, 44 × 32 in. (111.8 × 81.3 cm)

PLATE 6

HYBRID FIGURATION

1955, oil on canvas, 44 × 32 in. (111.8 × 81.3 cm)

PLATE 7

GREEN MOSS FIGURE

1955, oil on canvas, 44 × 32 in. (111.8 × 81.3 cm)

PLATE 8

LOWLY SPLENDOR

1955, oil on canvas, 44 × 28 in. (111.8 × 71.1 cm)

PLATE 9

WILD GROWTH

1955, oil on canvas, 44 × 28 in. (111.8 × 71.1 cm)

PLATE 10

BIRD OF PARADISE

1955, oil on canvas, 44 × 32 in. (111.8 × 81.3 cm)

PLATE 11

RAIN FOREST IMAGES

1955, oil on canvas, 44 × 32 in. (111.8 × 81.3 cm)

RALPH SHIGETO IWAMOTO

1927 Born in Honolulu 2013 Died in New York City

EDUCATION

1948–49

Art Students League, New York

1949–51

New York City College of Technology, CUNY, Brooklyn, NY (Formerly known as New York State University Institute of Applied Arts and Sciences)

1951–53

Art Students League, New York

MILITARY SERVICE

1946–48

United States Army, Congressional Gold Medal Award Recipient

AWARDS

1957

Purchase Prize, Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH

1958

John Hay Whitney Foundation, Fellowship, New York

1987

Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation, Grant, New York

2002

Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Grant, New York

2011

Congressional Gold Medal Award, Washington, D.C.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

1955

Fauna Figures, Regina, New York

1956

Flora Figures, Gima Gallery, Honolulu

1968

Shaped Canvases, Watson Gallery, Elmira College, NY

1973

Shaped Canvases, Westbeth Gallery, New York

1974

The Octagon Concept, Westbeth Gallery, New York

1986

8 Contemporary Asian-American Artists, East/West Fusion Gallery, Sharon, CT

1989

The Concept Form, The Gallery, St. Mary’s College, St. Mary’s City, MD

2001

Drawings and Paintings, Gallery

Onetwentyeight, New York

2004

Ralph Iwamoto Works from the ’50s, David Findlay Jr. Fine Art, New York

2008

Ralph Iwamoto (b. 1927): Fifty Years of Abstraction, The Gallery at Sixth and Sixth, Tucson, AZ

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

1948

Artists of Hawaii Group Show, Honolulu Academy of Arts, Honolulu

Group Show, Hale House [City Hall], Honolulu Art Association [Association of Honolulu Artists]

Group Show, Hale House, Hui Nani Artists, Honolulu

1953

4th Annual, Creative Gallery, New York

1954

Group Show, City Center Gallery, New York

1955

Group Show, Contemporary Arts Gallery, New York

1956

56 Annual, Riverside Museum, New York

Contemporary Arts Gallery, New York

1957

22nd Annual, Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH

1958

Art USA, Madison Square Garden, New York

153rd Annual, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia

Annual Exhibition, Detroit Institute of Arts

Drawings and Prints, Allegheny College, Meadville, PA

American Art of Our Time, Chrysler Museum of Art, Provincetown, MA

Whitney Annual, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

1959

Hawaiian Artists Painting in New York, Columbia Museum of Art, SC

Whitney Annual, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

1962

27th Annual, Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH

1964

Group Show, Kaymar Gallery, New York

1966

And Another, 2nd National Print and Drawing Exhibition, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo

1967

Group Shows, Clara Josephs Gallery, New York (and in 1968 and 1969)

1970

Annual Group Show, Westbeth Gallery, New York

1971

35 Years in Retrospect, Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH

1976

American Abstract Artists, Paterson State College, Ben Shahn Museum, Paterson, NJ

40th Anniversary Show, American Abstract Artists, Westbeth Gallery, New York

1978

Small Works, PS1, Project Studio, Long Island City, NY

1979

The American Abstract Artists: The Language of Abstraction, Betty Parsons Gallery and Marilyn Pearl Gallery, New York

1980

Small Works, 60 Washington Square East Gallery, New York University, New York

1981

Voices Expressing What Is, Westbeth Gallery, New York

1983

New Direction:  Ten Japanese-American Artists in Conjunction with the Enduring Heritage Exhibit, Newark Museum, NJ

Tradition and Today, Bergen County Museum of Art and Science, Paramus, NJ

1984

Invitational Show, Haragiku Museum, Tokyo

Invitational, Contemporary Japanese American Artists, Bloomingdale Gallery, Stamford, CT

1985

Gathering of the Avant-Garde, the Lower East Side 1948 to 1970, Kenkeleba Gallery, New York (also at St. Marks and Henry Street Settlement, New York)

Expo-85, Isetan Gallery, Tokyo

1986

Modern Japanese Abstracts, General Service Administration Gallery, Contemporary Artists Guild, New York Firehouse Gallery, Nassau Community College, Garden City, NY

1990

25th Anniversary Exhibition, The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu

1991

Open Mind: The Sol LeWitt Collection, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT

1992

Columbus: Collisio/Convergence of Cultures, Westbeth Gallery, New York

Susann Morse Hilles Gallery of 20th Century Art, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT

1996

Invitational Show, Ise Foundation, JASSI Group, New York

Invitational Show, Japanese American Association, New York

1997

Asian Traditions/Modern Expressions: Asian-American Artists and Abstraction, 1945–1970, Taipei Gallery, Taiwanese Cultural Center, New York (two-venue presentation)

Asian Traditions/Modern Expressions, Chicago Cultural Center

Asian Traditions/Modern Expressions, Asian American Artists and Abstraction, 1945–1970, Jane Voorhees/Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers State University, New Brunswick, NJ

1998

Asian Traditions/Modern Expressions, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan

Asian Traditions/Modern Expressions, Kaohsiung Museum of Art, Taipei, Taiwan

Asian Traditions/Modern Expressions, Bedford Gallery Regional Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek, CA

Asian Traditions/Modern Expressions, Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles, (two-venue presentation)

Asian Traditions/Modern Expressions, Fisher Gallery, University of Southern California, Los Angeles

1999

American and European Art from 1900 to the Present, Zimmerli Museum of Art, Rutgers State University, New Brunswick, NJ

Contemporary European and American Art, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT

Asian Traditions/Modern Expressions, Senshu Museum of Art, Akita, Japan

Asian Traditions/Modern Expressions, Fukuoka Asian Museum, Fukuoka City, Japan

Asian Traditions/Modern Expressions, Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art, Kochi City, Shikoku, Japan

2000

Invitational Show, Japanese American Association, New York

Recent Acquisitions, The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu

2001

Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings, Westbeth Gallery, New York

Altitude, Gallery Onetwentyeight, New York

Paintings and Drawings, Westbeth Gallery, New York

2002

Enriched by Diversity, The Art of Hawaii, Inaugural Exhibition of Artists from 1940 to the Present, Hawaii State Art Museum, Honolulu

Recent Acquisitions, The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu

500 Works on Paper: 1922–2002, Gary

Snyder Fine Art Gallery, New York

Eastern Essence:  Abstraction by Asian American Artists 1950–1970, Gary Snyder Fine Art, New York

Ad Infinitum Serial Works, Wynn Kramarsky, Private Showing, New York

Summersault, Gallery Onetwentyeight, New York

2003

Notebook, Pinkard Gallery, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore

LeWitt Collection, New Britain Museum of American Art, CT

Rivington Beach, Gallery Onetwentyeight, New York

Mother-in-Law, Gallery Onetwentyeight, New York

2004

Infinite Possibilities: Serial Imagery in 20th Century Drawings, Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College, MA

Works from the LeWitt Collection, Real Art Ways, Connecticut Cultural Center, Hartford, CT

Paintings, Drawings and Prints, Westbeth Gallery, New York

Invitational, Artists Equity, Broome Street Gallery, New York

2005

Other Dimensions of Abstract Art, Tribes Gallery, New York

Group Show, Gallery Onetwentyeight, New York

Annual Group Show, Westbeth Gallery, New York

Honolulu to New York, The Contemporary Museum at First Hawaiian Center, Honolulu

2006

Annual Show, Westbeth Gallery, New York

The 181st Annual: An Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary American Art, National Academy Museum, School of Fine Arts, New York

Four (Drawings by Four Artists), Gallery Onetwentyeight, New York

10th Anniversary; Artists of Hawaii, First Hawaiian Center, The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu

2007

Make Art Not War, Gallery Onetwentyeight, New York

Annual Show, Westbeth Gallery, New York

Asian American Artists: 1900–1970, Los Angeles County Museum, Los Angeles

LeWitt x 2, Sol LeWitt: Selections from the LeWitt Collection, Madison Museum of Contemporary Arts, WI; Miami Art Museum; The University of North Carolina at Greensboro; and Austin Museum of Art, TX

2008

Black & White: A Group Show, The Gallery at Sixth and Sixth, Tucson, AZ

Herbert Freedman Gallery, Interbonal, Inc., San Francisco

Asian/American/Modern Art, Shifting Currents, 1900–1970, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum; and Noguchi Museum, Long Island City, NY

2009

Holiday Invitational, Broome Street Gallery, New York

2010

Westbeth Pioneers, Westbeth Gallery, New York

Summer Set, David Findlay Jr. Fine Art, New York

2011

Summer Light, Westbeth Gallery, New York

Planet Alert, Gallery Onetwentyeight, New York

2012

Winter Group Show, Westbeth Gallery, New York

25 Years Anniversary Show, Gallery Onetwentyeight, New York

2014

Tetsuo Ochikubo and Friends, Koa Art Gallery, Honolulu

2017

Abstract Expressionism: Looking East from the Far West, Honolulu Museum of Art

2019

The Shaped Canvas Movement of the 1960s, D. Wigmore Fine Art, Inc., New York

2021

Homage to the Square: Albers’s Influence on Geometric Abstraction, D. Wigmore Fine Art, Inc., New York

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Goulding, John J. “250 Works of Art at City Hall This Week for Non-Jury Show.”

Honolulu Star-Bulletin, September 21, 1948, 9.

Lawson, Edna B. “Non-Jury Art Exhibit Is Opened at Honolulu Hale.” The Honolulu Advertiser, September 21, 1948, 7.

Devree, Howard. “Art and Artists: Seven Exhibitions.” The New York Times, November 4, 1954, 46.

Breuning, Margaret. “City Center Group.” Art Digest 29, no.1 (October 1, 1954): 26.

Burrows, Carlyle. “Art.” New York Herald-Tribune, October 1954.

Newbill, Al. “Ralph Iwamoto.” Art Digest 29, no. 16 (May 15, 1955): 31.

Devree, Howard. “Whitney Round-Up: The Annual Appraisal Masters–Newcomers.” The New York Times, November 23, 1958, X13.

Mellow, James R. “Art Review: Display by 7 At Westbeth.”  The New York Times, February 17, 1973, 28.

Kusunoki, Takako. “Bold Paintings.” The New York Nichibei, February 17, 1974.

Weigl, Jean Kondo. Works by JapaneseAmerican Visual Artists and Craftsmen. Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah, 1978. Ichida, Koji. “Article.” Ichimai no e Magazine, December 1980.

———. American Arts History (Ichimai-no-e, 1982).

Watkins, Eileen. “Newark Museum Exhibits Contrast Traditional, Contemporary Japan Art.” The Sunday Star-Ledger, October 22, 1983, ill., 14.

Ichida, Koji. New York Art Letters to Japan. Tokyo: Doyo Bijitsu-sha, 1984.

Harrison, Helen A. “Japanese Abstraction: Looking West.” The New York Times (Long Island Edition), December 29, 1985, 12.

Camper, Fred. “Precision Abstraction.” Chicago Reader, October 16, 1997, chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/ precision-abstraction.

Jordan, Chris. “Linking East and West.” The Central New Jersey Home News, April 11, 1997, 8.

Wechsler, Jeffrey, ed. Asian Traditions/ Modern Expressions: Asian American Artists and Abstraction, 1945–1970 New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1997.

Genocchio, Benjamin. “LeWitt the Collector, Filling Up a Warehouse.” The New York Times, January 1, 2004, ill., sec. E, 3.

Wechsler, Jeffrey. Ralph Iwamoto works from the ‘50s. New York: David Findlay Jr. Fine Art, 2004.

————. “Ralph Iwamoto: Nature Transformed, Nature Abstracted, Works from the ’50s.” The Artists Proof, New York Artists Equity Association, Inc. 24 (Fall 2004): ill., 7.

Chavez, Anja. Infinite Possibilities: Serial Imagery in 20th Century Drawings. Wellesley, MA: Davis Museum and Cultural Center, 2005.

Decker, Elisa. “Ralph Iwamoto at David Findlay Jr.” Art in America (January 2005).

Naves, Mario. “Un-Hyped Academy Annual Quietly Takes the Long View.” New York Observer, June 5, 2006, observer.com/2006/06/unhypedacademy-annual-quietly-takes-thelong-view.

Cornell, Daniell, and Mark Dean, eds. Asian/American/Modern Art, Shifting Currents, 1900–1970. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2008, ill. 125.

Mark Pomilio. “The Elegance of Simplicity: The Paintings of Ralph Iwamoto” in Ralph Iwamoto: Fifty Years of Abstraction. Tucson, AZ: The Gallery at Sixth and Sixth, 2008. Regan, Margaret. “Minimalism and Modernists.” Tucson Weekly Print Friendly, January 17, 2008, tucsonweekly.com/ tucson/minimalism-and-modernists/ Content?oid=1090223.

Hancock, Travis. “In a Sea of Change.” Living 9.2 (2017): ill., 22–23.

Papanikolas, Theresa, and Stephen Salel. Abstract Expressionism: Looking East from the Far West. Honolulu: Honolulu Museum of Art, 2017, ill. 6, 66–67.

Lenz, Emily. The Shaped Canvas Movement of the 1960s. New York: D. Wigmore Fine Art, Inc., 2019, ill., 5, 29, 31.

SELECTED PUBLIC AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS

Bjorn Reselle Fine Art, New York

Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH

The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu

Department of Fine Arts, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

Franklin Furnace Archives, New York

Herbert Johnson Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

Honolulu Advertiser Publication Collection, Honolulu

Jane Voorhees/Zimmerli Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ

Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii, Heritage Room, Honolulu

Werner (Wynn) Kramarsky Collection, New York

Sol LeWitt Collection, Chester, CT

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe

James and Mimi Rosenquist, Aripeka, Tampa, FL

Robert Ryman, New York

Sheldon Swope Art Gallery, Terre Haute, IN St. Mary’s College, St. Mary’s City, MD State Foundation of Culture and the Arts, Honolulu

Thurston Twigg-Smith Collection, Honolulu

Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT

Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection, New York

Charmion Von Weigand Collection, Tibetan Buddhist Institute, New York

This catalogue has been published on the occasion of the exhibition “Wild Growth: Ralph Iwamoto, Surrealist Works from 1955” organized by Hollis Taggart, New York, and presented from 23 March–15 April 2023.

Artwork © Ralph Iwamoto

Essay © Jeffrey Wechsler

ISBN: 979-8-9863522-7-5

Publication © 2023 Hollis Taggart

All rights reserved. Reproduction of contents prohibited.

Hollis Taggart

521 West 26th Street 1st & 2nd Floors

New York, NY 10001

Tel 212 628 4000

www.hollistaggart.com

Catalogue production: Kara Spellman

Copyediting: Jessie Sentivan

Design: McCall Associates, New York

Printing: Point B Solutions, Minneapolis

Photography: Joshua Nefsky, New York

Front and back covers: Apparition of a Bud (detail), 1955 (pl. 1)

Frontispiece: Satoru Abe and Ralph Iwamoto in New York, c. 1948. Courtesy of the Estate of Ralph Iwamoto

Page 4: Ralph Iwamoto, Tango no Sekku (Boys’ Day), May 5, 1928. Courtesy of the Estate of Ralph Iwamoto

Page 6: Monument to Nature (detail), 1955 (pl. 3)

Photography and Reproduction Credits commons.wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Heliconia_ caribaea_(Heliconiaceae).jpg (fig. 1) // commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bird_of_Paradise_flower. jpg (fig. 2) // © G. Daida (fig. 3) // Lam, Wifredo (1902–1982) © ARS, NY; Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/ Art Resource, NY (fig. 4) // Andrea Jemolo/ Scala/Art Resource, NY (fig. 6)