Minol Araki Digital Catalog

MINOL AR AKI Where Beauty Dwells

February 23 - March 23 | 2024

Sage on Cliff, 1977, Ink & color on paper, 13.5 x 13.5 in

The beautiful works in this Chinese-Japanese tradition of paintings with ink and colors on paper by Minol Araki (1928-2010), brings into the galleries of LewAllen a legacy of artmaking rarely seen in the modernday contemporary art world: works of extraordinary beauty and remarkable accomplishment originally painted completely independent of the world of commerce and entirely for their own sake. This unusual tradition, called the literati, is said to trace its roots to an ideal form of Chinese scholar -painting as long ago as the Northern Song period (960–1127) in China, and contemporized over the centuries through a number of variations including the wenrenhua of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and the bunjinga in Japan in the late Edo period (1603–1868). The artists of this tradition were considered scholar/intellectuals and were interested in personal erudition and expression removed from influences of the market or fashion.

Following this tradition, Araki, who made his living entirely from a very successful career as an industrial designer, never sold his paintings during his lifetime and planned to build a museum to house his work on land he owned outside Tokyo. Unfortunately, he died before that dream could be realized. His entire art estate was entrusted to David Frank and Kazukuni Sugiyama who have since diligently worked to preserve Araki’s legacy through placement of his work in the permanent collections of more than twenty major national and international museums. LewAllen is honored to be able now to make the paintings included in this exhibition available for private acquisition. We are also profoundly grateful to Professor Claudia Brown for her outstanding essay that introduces Araki and so beautifully describes the work of this remarkable artist.

-Kenneth R. Marvel

MINOL AR AKI Where Beauty Dwells February 23 - March 23 | 2024

1613 Paseo de Peralta I Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 I 505.988.3250 I lewallengalleries.com I contact@lewallengalleries.com Above: Hong Kong Woman, 1979, Ink on paper 18 x 27 in Cover: Bird on Branch, 1979, Ink & color on paper, 13.5 x 13.5 in

MINOL AR AKI (1928 - 2010) Where Beauty Dwells

By Claudia Brown, Professor of Art History School of Art, Herberger Institute of Design and the Arts, Arizona State University

THE PAINTINGS OF MINOL ARAKI have been known in the United States since 1999 when the first large show of his work opened at the Phoenix Art Museum. That exhibition was presented at six other venues in the US and Asia. More recently, in 2017–2018, Araki’s work has been the subject of a series of exhibitions at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Two New York galleries have recently shown his work. In the present exhibition, LewAllen Galleries offers more than twenty-five paintings by Minol Araki.

Born in 1928, in the Japanese colonial city called Dairen, a thriving Manchurian port city at the tip of the Liaodong peninsula, Araki grew up in a family with artistic interests and studied architecture at an academy in that city. However, with the end of World War II and the occupation of Dairen by the Soviets and the Chinese, he had to interrupt his study and evacuate with his family to Japan.

By 1947 he had resumed his architectural studies in Tokyo, and soon he began to pursue a design career.

Araki made his career in product design. He admired the work of Raymond Loewy (1893–1986), known for his designs of Studebaker autos and his Coca-Cola bottle. Araki designed housewares and electronics for Tandy Corporation/Radio Shack and other companies, work which took him frequently to Taiwan and the United States.

In the 1970s, Araki began to experiment with painting, an avocation which he kept separate from his career as a designer.

In this, he revisited the Chinese scholar-painters, often called literati, who painted as an expressive outlet alongside their professional work. His employment of brush and ink in the time-honored Chinese manner was complemented by study of European painting, and led to an international style that could suit Eastern and Western viewers alike.

Araki produced large paintings, combining aspects of the Japanese folding or sliding screen with concepts of the Western format of the mural or wall painting. He accomplished this by constructing panels the size of a tatami mat, the module of Japanese flooring, and stretching a composition over two or more panels. Offered here by LewAllen Galleries are works in a smaller format. These are not studies and sketches but polished, finished paintings, with layering of pigments and textures.

In the East Asian tradition, taking inspiration from past masters is considered a way to increase understanding of a previous artist’s work. In this manner, Araki re-interpreted the work of American artist Ben Shahn (1898–1969) in his Ben Shahn Red (1978) and Ben Shahn Blue (1978). In other works he made indirect references, such as in his Masks (1985), in which he evokes recollection of the work of the Belgian artist James Ensor (1860–1949). Of course, he also took inspiration from the local traditions of Japan, especially matsuri, the festivals often sponsored by temples or shrines in which masked dances are often performed.

Araki experimented with ink portrayals of birds, taking inspiration from the Chinese painter Zhu Da (Bada Shanren, 1626–1705), who used such imagery in works expressing political protest.These may be forerunners of Araki’s birds in unstable or awkward poses, such as in Bird by Lotus (1977), and birds with bulging eyes suggesting annoyance or disbelief as in Bird on a Persimmon Branch (1978). These go further than Zhu Da in their playfulness. His Angry Monkey (1979) and Five Monkeys in the Snow (1979) may have been inspired in part by his study of the work of the artist Zhang Daqian (1899–1983) whom he came to know personally. With both of these subjects he infuses a greater sense of emotion and attributes qualities of surprise, and even anger, to the animals.

Angry Monkey, 1979 Ink & color on paper 36.25 x 72.75 in

Araki’s highly abstract landscapes may also owe some inspiration to Zhang Daqian and other modern Chinese ink painters who blended traditional ink painting with abstract expressionism.

Some of these have a highly distinctive use of washes of color or ink maintaining a dynamic relationship between representation and abstraction. Forest (1985), for example, plunges the viewer into a massive forest of trees, each loosely suggested by ink tonalities. Other paintings, like Landscape (2001) seem to reflect a spontaneous application of color in wet-on-wet sections in the painting, something that Japanese artists experimented with from the 18th century onward. Araki innovated his own distinctive picture space in these works so that they stand apart from historical works. For example, in some of his landscapes, Araki altered the flow of recession into implied distance fundamental to East Asia painting, bringing the landscape close to the viewer and adding expressive washes of ink as in Landscape (1986). In others, he evokes the delight in colorful washes that Western watercolorists have long enjoyed, for example in Lone Tree (2006).

One of Araki’s artistic contributions is his development of portraiture in a kind of character study. We glimpse the distinctive attributes of the sitters in a pleasing way. The thoughtful and downcast gaze in Contemplating Man (1978), or the superior and stylish pose of Hong Kong Woman (1979) give the viewer a chance to appreciate the attitudes and imagine the accomplishments of these people. Araki’s striking additions of color or ink as a background as in The Professor (1978) and the emphasis on gesture as in Wooly Haired Man (1978) add immediacy that portraits do not always achieve.

Some works by Araki introduce novelty. Starlight over the Mountains (2006) surprises the viewer with bright color juxtaposed with rich black ink, while Mountain Stream (2006) suggests a feeling of delight, with its textures of delicate colors topped by a black sky filled with stars.

Like landscape painters in both East and West, Araki drew from observation of lands that he knew—perhaps especially those of Japan and Taiwan—and created imaginary mountains and valleys to engage the mind.

Mountain Village, 1978 Ink & color on paper 35.5 x 81.5 in

Sage on Cliff, 1977 Ink & color on paper 13.5 x 13.5 in

Landscape, 1986 Ink & color on paper 18.25 x 27.5 in

Mountain Lake and Village, 1980 Ink & color on paper 35.5 x 82.25 in

Mountain Stream, 2006 Ink & color on paper mounted on panel 34.5 x 34.5 in

Lone Tree, 2006 Ink & color with gold & mica on paper 34.62 x 34.62 in

2 Sages in Landscape, 1977 Ink & color on paper 35 x 72.25 in

House Near River, 1978 Ink & color on paper 13.5 x 13.5 in

Starlight Over the Mountains, 2006 Ink & color on paper mounted on panel 34.5 x 34.5 in

Forest, 1985 Ink & color on paper 17.75 x 20.75 in

Bird by Lotus, 1977 Ink & color on paper 18 x 26.75 in

Bird on Persimmon Branch, 1978 Ink & color on paper 27.75 x 54.25 in

Bird Sleeping, 1978 Ink & color on paper 13.25 x 13 in

A Bird That Ate a Lot of Rabbits & Turned White, 1977 Ink & color on paper 27 x 27 in

Angry Monkey, 1979 Ink & color on paper 36.25 x 72.75 in

Ben Shahn Red, 1978 Ink & color on paper scroll 85.75 x 34.25 in

Ben Shahn Blue, 1978 Ink & color on paper scroll 85.75 x 34.25 in

Masks, 1985 Ink & color on paper 18 x 21.25 in

Hong Kong Woman, 1979 Ink on paper 18 x 27 in

Wooly Haired Man, 1978 Ink & color on paper 13.5 x 17.75 in

Contemplating Man, 1978 Ink & color on paper 13.5 x 17.75 in

The Professor, 1978 Ink & color on paper 13.5 x 17.75 in

Boy on Chair, 1991 Ink & color on paper 18 x 15.25 in

Peonies, 2001 Ink & color on paper mounted on panel 34.5 x 69.25 in

Back Cover: Landscape, 2001, Ink & color on paper, 27 x 26.25 in

Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | contact@lewallengalleries.com ©2024 LewAllen Galleries | Artwork ©Minol Araki