George Miyasaki: Deep Space (1981-1989)

GEORGE MIYASAKI DEEP SPACE (1981-1989)

October 29 – December 23, 2022

George Miyasaki’s Tender Geometries by Tom Wolf

The works in this exhibition date from the 1980s, by which time George Miyasaki (b. 1935, Kalopa, HI - d. 2013, Berkeley, CA) was a mature artist in his mid-forties who had been showing professionally since he was in his early twenties. The works on view represent the eloquent and refined accomplishments of an artist who is considered to be part of the Abstract Expressionist movement, which played a prominent role in the San Francisco—and the national—art scene since the early 1940s.

Miyasaki grew up in Kalopa, Hawaii, the son of immigrants from Kyushu, Japan. He and his five siblings worked in the family business bottling soda drinks, Hamakua Soda Works, and in the sugar cane fields. He excelled at art in high school and one of his teachers recommended that he continue his art studies in California, so he moved to the San Francisco area. Precociously talented, he started exhibiting his startlingly mature abstract paintings and prints when he was still an undergraduate at the California College of Arts and Crafts. By the 1960s, Miyasaki was a recognized figure in the Northern California art scene, his layered, delicately hued, painterly canvases reflecting the impact of two of his teachers, Nathan Oliveira and Richard Diebenkorn, as he readily acknowledged. His art would go through changes in style and imagery, but he often returned to abstraction in a way that evokes Diebenkorn’s works: abstract but with the suggestion of landscapes. For a brief period in the early 1960s, he departed from abstraction to make striking Pop art, appropriating photographs of sexy women from magazines, and after spending some time in Los Angeles, he made luminous abstract prints that relate to L.A.’s Light and Space style. In the 1970s, Miyasaki withdrew from exhibiting and from the art world for a while; in 1959, he had married Judith Shirley Braskat, a fellow art student from

California College of the Art, and they had three children—but they separated in 1970 and divorced in 1975. He re-emerged on the art scene in the late 1970s, and was encouraged by an exhibition at the Honolulu Museum of Art, where he showed paintings like those exhibited here: layered, delicately colored abstractions that play passages of geometrical order against areas of amorphous, atmospheric color.

George Miyasaki with Connie Wirtz and Ray Saunders, c. 1978

With its rich gamut of color and form, Rosebud (1981) is an early example of his renewed confidence in abstraction. Miyasaki contained the central imagery within a slender border that moves through a dazzling range of color, from pale purple at the top left, through a variety of pinks and pale blues, achieved by pouring thinned acrylic paint onto the canvas. The ever-changing hues of the frame circumscribe a complicated symphony of colors and forms, dominated by a constantly modulating range of whites. For an example of the visual richness of the painting, look at the triangular form that anchors the composition at the center left, made of a sheet of painted paper adhered to the surface. One of many shades of off-white that dominate the painting, its geometric severity is softened by the subtle lines of greys and reds that run through it like veins, suggesting emotions seeping through the façade of this serene composition. Another triangle points into the painting from the right edge, this one filled with a grid of diagonal, quasi-rectangular shapes that seem to lean into space, in contrast to the resolute flatness of the triangle to the left. This is just one example of the contrapuntal play of form and color that makes up this calm but complicated collage painting.

In an interview Miyasaki said of his art: “I’m sure it’s rooted in the classical, and it’s derived from the Impressionists…” The play between structure and atmosphere suggests a kind of abstract Impressionism, with geometric forms replacing the Impressionists’ trees and haystacks that are both present and dissolving into colored atmospheres. The artist stated that his paintings are based on a dialogue between geometric shapes and atmospheric passages: “Geometry to me is in a synthetic, inorganic category and other things that are more fluid, soft, I put in the organic category… A yin-yang kind of thing, I guess, that’s the easiest way I can describe what I do. I try to use opposites, balance one thing with another.”

Rosebud embodies this aesthetic, and its title refers to the many shades of pink that run through the painting. But it could also refer to Orson Welles’ classic movie, Citizen Kane, which ends with the incantation of the word, “rosebud,” recalling the sled that Kane lost during his childhood, a loss that haunted his life and determined his ruthless personality. Most of Miyasaki’s titles are not as suggestive as Rosebud; they are sometimes place names, according to him taken randomly from an atlas. In the 1950s, the titles and the paintings frequently had landscape references, imagery that is again evoked in his works from the 1980s.

The pinks from Rosebud are even more pronounced in One Horse Town (1983), in which this opulent color, in various shades, takes up about half the painting. Its Rococo sensuality is

Rosebud, 1981

set against the triangular grid of diamond shapes that is wedged into the top center of the painting—another intrusion of the geometric into the atmospheric. The diamond grid appears several times in this exhibition, where it can suggest a checkerboard, or the traditional garb of the Harlequin, a tragicomic Commedia dell’arte figure. It features in Big Stone (1989) where its precision is set against crumpled pieces of layered paper that are tinted delicate shades of blue and lavender, perfumed colors that create a sensual atmosphere that pervades the entire painting. In Eagle Hill (1989), the diamond grid is enclosed in the dominating snout-like form that thrusts into the composition from the right. The grid is again juxtaposed with pastel colors and irregular, textured shapes, complemented by the ragged edges of the handmade paper that supports this symphony of rigid geometries set against an atmospheric background.

Through his career, Miyasaki was known as an expert printmaker. Between 1958 and 1959, when he was in his twenties, his prints were shown in over twenty-five group exhibitions around the United States. Printmaking was one of the subjects he taught during his thirty years on the faculty at the University of California at Berkeley—he and Nathan Oliveira famously helped Willem de Kooning make his first lithographs when de Kooning visited California in 1960. The next year, Miyasaki had a residency at the renowned Tamarind lithography studio in Los Angeles, which further developed his technical virtuosity with printmaking, including the use of handmade paper and paper pulp.

David Acton wrote of Miyasaki, “During the 1950s it was he who best succeeded in translating the full impact of action painting into printmaking,” and his lithographs of that period are full of the spontaneous gestural energy that characterized that style. But by the 1980s, his prints had become more layered and contemplative. The grid appears again in the lithograph Gallop (1982); its staccato black versus bright white diamond shapes evoke the title as they contrast the sensual textures of the varied rectangles that surround them.

George Miyasaki in his studio, 1988

Because of his close involvement with Diebenkorn and Oliveira, Miyasaki’s art is often seen as related to California strains of Abstract Expressionism. His later contemplative works belong to the color field as opposed to the action painting phase of the style. Of the prominent Abstract Expressionist artists on the East Coast, Miyasaki’s paintings have the most affinity to the muted, tranquil works of the Japanese American painter Kenzo Okada, which raises the question of Asian elements in his work. His heritage was Japanese, and East Asian presences were strong in the San Francisco community, from its busy Chinatown to artists like Carlos Villa, from the Philippines, who was an acquaintance and a lively player in the art scene. In his early twenties, Miyasaki was in several shows of Asian artists at the California State Fair, and in Berkeley he had a circle of Asian American artist friends including Arthur Okamura, Arthur Mayeno, and Jimmy Suzuki. For some time Miyasaki shared a studio with Peter Voulkos, whose influential ceramics pay homage to their Japanese Raku ware precursors. The studio was the site of wild parties, but Miyasaki mostly stayed aloof from them. His daughter reports that he was an excellent cook, especially fond of Thai, Japanese and Hawaiian dishes. Like most immigrants, he carried aspects of his cultural heritage with him.

Ann W. Heymann wrote, “Although he has lived on the mainland for many years, he retains the melodious speech patterns of the islanders, and his rhythms seem tuned to the free-flowing island dances.” Miyasaki’s Asian influences originated in his place of birth, Hawaii. In an interview with Irene Poon he stated,

…if there’s anything that influences me, my background, you know, you just have to go back to the island, I mean not to Japan. Ah, but the Hawaii thing, born and raised in Hawaii, would have a lot of influence because visually, you know, there’s a lot of things that I saw there...the colors and stuff sure give me a real strong sense of color in what I do…

Miyasaki’s paintings relate to his Asian Hawaiian precursors, Isami Doi and Reuben Tam, who both spent long periods in the United States, but whose abstracted landscapes are much better known in Hawaii, where they are considered two of the most important artists in the Asian Pacific tradition. Doi spent much of the late 1920s and early 1930s in New York, before returning to Hawaii. In 1954, he returned for several years in New York, and encouraged a group of Japanese Hawaiian artists of the next generation to follow him—Satoru Abe, Bumpei Akaji, Keichi Kimura, Tetsuo Ochikubo, and Jerry Okimoto—who became important figures in the

history of Hawaiian art when they returned to their homeland. They were roughly Miyasaki’s contemporaries and his move to California paralleled their ambition to expose themselves to the most recent artistic developments on the mainland. Unlike them, he remained there, in the house he bought in Berkeley in 1980, although in his later years he seriously contemplated moving back.

Big Stone (1989) is a cool, harmonious work dominated by pale blues and violets. A triangle, made up of diamond shapes in light blue and white, again evokes the Harlequin. It is set against ragged layers of crumpled paper that erupt into relief, but the delicacy of their colors keeps them subdued. The painting is structured as a series of diagonals—there are no stabilizing horizontals or verticals—but the loveliness of the hues seduces them into harmony. An acquaintance of Miyasaki’s described him as “Not gregarious, quiet, introspective.” A painting like Big Stone gives the sense of strong emotions held in check, calmed by the serene beauty of the delicate—a sense that recurs frequently in Miyasaki’s refined and profound art.

Tom Wolf is a Professor of Art History and Visual Culture at Bard College with a specialty in twentieth century Asian American art history

Sources:

Irene Poon Andersen, “An Interview With George Miyasaki,” April 9, 1998, California Asian American Artists

Biographical Directory, Stanford University. Al Morch, “The Art of George Miyasaki Calls for Contemplation,” San Francisco Examiner, June 8, 1981, E6. Ann W. Heyman, “George Miyasaki,” Art Voices South, January/ February 1980. David Acton, “The Early Prints of George Miyasaki,” the Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco, 1992. Telephone interview with Asian American art authority Mark Johnson. Telephone interviews and emails with the daughter of the artist, Julie Miyasaki.

Rosebud, 1981

Oil, acrylic, and collaged paper on canvas 80 x 60 inches (203.2 x 152.4 cm)

Exhibition History:

George Miyasaki, Stephen Wirtz Gallery, CA, 1981

One Horse Town, 1982 Oil, acrylic, and collaged paper on canvas 64 x 45 inches (162.6 x 114.3 cm)

Exhibition History: Paper/Art: Survey of the Work of Fifteen Northern California Paper Artists, Crocker Art Museum, CA, 1981

QuickSilver, 1984-1986 Oil, acrylic, and collaged paper on canvas 60 x 72 inches (152.4 x 182.9 cm)

Roughcreek, 1984-1985 Oil, acrylic, and collaged paper on canvas 60 x 72 inches (152.4 x 182.9 cm)

Bigstone, 1989 Oil, acrylic, and collaged paper on canvas 66 x 60 inches (167.6 x 152.4 cm)

Gallop, 1982

Lithograph

40 x 30 1/2 inches (101.6 x 77.5 cm) Edition of 50

Exhibition History:

International Printmaking Invitational, The Art Gallery California State College San Bernadino, CA, 1983

Exchange Exhibition of Print and Drawing between Seoul and SF, World Print Council Space Art Gallery, U.S.I.S., Korea Cultural Service Daewoo Group, KOR, 1983-84

Tamarind 25 Years, University Art Museum, University of New Mexico, 1985

Tamarind Impressions Exhibition, University of New Mexico, 1986

An Exhibition of Lithographs from Tamarind Institute, Governor’s Gallery, New Mexico, 1984

EagleHill, 1989

Oil, acrylic, and collaged paper on handmade paper 35 3/4 x 31 1/2 inches (90.8 x 80 cm)

Excerpt of an interview with George Miyasaki conducted by Ann W. Heymann, c. 1980

AH: Do you always start with a grid?

GM: I always do now, just because of the nature of the elements, which means I am trying to be true to my endeavor. The graph to me is the most typical—the graph to me kind of epitomizes the most sterile, the most mechanical graphic symbol. You know when you look at an accountant’s page or something—it’s the most basic beginning of something structural. I use it just for the hell of it, really. I don’t think that I really need it compositionally anymore. In the past, maybe I used it a little bit more in terms of something to reference, but at this point I destroy it. [...] I almost use it because it’s the nature of what it is—it’s like maybe a resistance, maybe just a reminder to me that this is one of the factors that I have to deal with. And I just do it automatically now, I don’t even think about it, because I feel like I have to have it as a kind of building block.

AH: Okay, the very washed looking areas that aren’t covered over, how do you do those?

GM: Well, I don’t really paint thickly anymore, I paint very thin, because I kind of like the transparency first; maybe it’s just a process thing. I’m not trying for a certain effect, really, it’s just the way I’m a painter. I don’t paint very thick. I use a lot of very loose, watery paint also. It’s almost like watercolors, there are really flat areas whereas these ones have random colors in the brush. Just in the process of doing that I guess it looks like very thin washes, but I like the fact that thin paint moves a lot. I guess I’m still in a sense very influenced by Diebenkorn, who was my teacher. In fact, I did my graduate work under Diebenkorn so I always have part of that. He still has a lot of influence.

AH: But how do you apply it though, some of it looks sprayed, for instance here, is that a spray?

GM: Oh no, I don’t use the spray at all anymore. In fact, I’m really against the idea of spray.

AH: It does have the effect of it though, in that area down there in the bottom.

GM: No this is just very thin washes, for instance like a lighter color laid over a darker color, and it just kind of evens out and dries there, because it is very thin. So you can see that it has a kind of a very fine, fanned look to it, I guess.

George Miyasaki, c. 1988. Photo by Jo Whaley.

George Miyasaki’s studio, 2013

AH: Do you use big brushes for that initial color that’s laid on, like your first application which would be, I guess in here?

GM: Yeah probably, a lot of times I just run the color over it.

AH: Like pour it over?

GM: Yeah just pour it right over.

AH: Okay that’s what I’m getting at, I’m trying to find out how it’s done.

GM: So that part kind of gives me the fluid feel of the painting, and then I will use the geometry part to contrast it. And if you notice also that just in terms of surface space, some places are left very, very fluid looking, very kind of organic, and other parts of the painting are extremely flat and sterile so you have these two, again, counterparts but each one has very organic and at the same time non-organic type surfaces.

AH: Are you doing this whole series in these colors, this rose—rosy-glow?

GM: My rose period.

AH: Do you consider it your rose period?

GM: Well, that’s what Steve [Wirtz] says—it’s my rose period. Yeah, I like reds and blues. Actually, my whole source of colors are the three primaries, I don’t buy any other colors. People used to think I was a real cheapskate because of that, but basically I can only use pure colors because of the nature of my colors. I can’t use cad colors [sic] and all the modular colors—I have no use for it, because if I use them it throws me off, badly. So I finally decided to just stick to the real pure—what I consider the pure colors—the three primary colors. And I try to derive mostly all colors from these three primary colors, you know, plus black and white. But a large array of colors just throws me off, actually. I really don’t want anything else except the three primaries.

AH: Can I look at your jars?

GM: Sure.

AH: Light crimson. Okay, so it makes a good pink. What are these, the cans?

GM: Those are enamel that I used to spray with. In the 60s I used to spray a lot. Or in the early 70s also. But I don’t use them anymore so they’re probably all messed up.

AH: You were going to show me something old?

GM: You mean in terms of paintings?

AH: Yeah, some of your older work.

GM: Well I’d have to go back— All of the paintings that I have here are not that old. But I’ll show you the prints, that’ll be easier.

AH: Oh, okay. How many are you going to have at Wirtz [Stephen Wirtz Gallery]?

GM: Well, we’ll probably show about three. It’ll probably be these, together as a group thing, the larger ones to the smaller ones.

AH: You’re not going to show this one over here?

GM: No, that’s in process, actually, I’m still working on it. I worked on it yesterday, so.

AH: Have you always worked in acrylics rather than oils?

GM: No, actually I didn’t switch to acrylics until about ‘65, which is pretty late.

AH: Why did you make the switch?

GM: I made the switch because my images at the time changed. But I couldn’t handle acrylics before that. Because I was painting things that were more washy, and thick, and I was involved in impasto, things that stand up—acrylic never does that, I mean if you do something, it’ll just dry into a more matted kind of surface. But for more formal kinds of work, I think the acrylics, in a sense, [sic] is an advantage because it doesn’t give the glare or the uneven surfaces that you more have to get with oils. So I just switched to acrylics when I started to do more formal types of work. When I moved out of the abstract expressionist kind of thing, I took up acrylics. And now I like it. In fact, I finally at this point realize maybe how to use it. But yeah I can’t use oils right now, I in no way could incorporate oil, except maybe for an understated kind of thing. It just wouldn’t fit my views. I don’t think so. Also acrylics stand better in a certain way and also dries faster. [sic] And I don’t really want the luster, obviously, so this is much more suitable for me.

AH: What’s this over here?

GM: This is a proof that I printed on newsprint when I was doing one of my editions in lithography. And I worked on it with the idea of trying to get some ideas. You see—I used to work a lot with this circular motif, so I did some variation and painted over it to get some ideas for painting. So this became kind of a thing where I was searching around for new ways to approach my painting. But this is already a long time ago, and I’m not using the surface much anymore.

AH: Do you pull your own prints or does someone else do them for you?

George Miyasaki at Magnolia Editions, c. 1985

GM: No, so far I’ve been doing it myself.

AH: Uh-huh. Okay, that’s good to know—alright, show me some prints.

GM: Okay, well, I’ll have to take you back there.

AH: Oh, oh I thought they were here. [They move to another part of the studio]

AH: I like the way that bottom circle kind of fades and then comes out again. You have to kind of search for it, and then suddenly it’s there and it’s not there.

GM: That wasn’t intentional, as much as it just happened, you know. I just thought I’d start out with some circular things, and then started erasing them. But that’s the nature of acrylics, it doesn’t really have that much covering power.

AH: Well it makes it interesting, you know, to find it there and not there.

GM: Take a look at this one too. You think this will come out? Even this one will come out if you get it at a certain angle. But I tried to recreate it. It’s like a [unintelligible] to think about one’s art, to envision it. There’s evidence of when I tried to erase it. See, that’s what artists will do, right? They’ll paint over it, and just completely cover it. But if you have something strong enough underneath and free to color over it, it’s very hard because you change the surface, whether [sic] you paint it or not paint it. Also with the paint coming through. And that’s what these are here. And these are from the original paintings. Even the ones down here, see this here and here.

AH: I didn’t notice those before. But this one, this one kept coming in and going out.

GM: The size thing also might be interesting. These are the first ones that I’d done, a long time ago, this scale. For years, I painted like six by six feet, or larger, so these are the first small things that I’ve done in a long time. In fact, you’ve looked at most of the large ones.

AH: Yeah, I’ve noticed them. Big canvases.

GM: For a while, I was using such strong colors here that I really couldn’t get down to a smaller size. They didn’t work at all, so I painted large for a long time.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition:

George Miyasaki: Deep Space (1981-1989) October 29 – December 23, 2022

RYAN LEE Gallery

515 West 26th Street New York, NY 10011 212 397 0742

www.ryanleegallery.com

Catalogue manager: Ethel Renia

Photography: Adam Reich

Essay: Tom Wolf

Design: Mikhail Mishin

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