Kazuko Inoue
Provenance
Ex. Coll: The Artist; Allan Stone Gallery New York, NY until 2020.
Label: Allan Stone Gallery inventory sticker: "KI 169 - Inoue, Kazuko -Untitled oil on canvas - 36 1/4 x 33 in 92.1 x 83.8 cm barcode 7008881
Kazuko Inoue
Japanese/American (b. 1946)
Untitled
Oil on canvas
36 ¼ x 33 inches
Signed (on the reverse in pencil) at lower left, Kazuko Inoue
Inscribed on the reverse:
27 (in red) / - ASG -KI-160 (in black) / 36 ¼ x 33 o/cotton (in red).
1995
Ex. Coll: The Artist; Allan Stone Gallery, New York, NY until 2020
Label: Allan Stone Gallery inventory sticker:
"KI 169 - Inoue, Kazuko - Untitled oil on canvas - 36 ¼ x 33 in
92.1 x 83.8 cm
Barcode 7008881"
Born in 1946 in Tokyo, Japan, Kazuko Inoue moved to the United States in the 1960's. She received a BFA and MFA from Michigan State University. An Abstract Expressionist and a superb colorist, the artist creates meditative, spiritual paintings. According to Inoue, 20th century greats Kazimir Malevich, Wassily Kandinsky and Henri Matisse influenced her own work.
For more than thirty years Inoue exhibited with Allan Stone Gallery. Widely acknowledged as one of the pre-eminent dealers in Abstract Expressionism, Stone was a legendary spotter and nurturer of talent. Inoue's long and fruitful relationship with Stone began in 1984. For fifteen years Inoue featured prominently on Stone's roster. The artist had solo exhibitions and group shows at Allan Stone Gallery which sold well and garnered many positive reviews in the art press.
Inoue's works are stylistically grouped series. Early on the artist juxtaposed grids and squares with diagonal brush strokes. By the 1990's she rejected the grid and squares and focused on exploring color using her signature brush strokes on squarish canvases. This work, Untitled, 1995, is a richly textured composition of warm pastel colors punctuated by dashes of egg yolk yellow, fire engine red, forest green and light blue. Creating this work must have been a meditation for the artist. For the viewer it is a visual feast of color and texture. Untitled, 1995 is one of the many paintings that demonstrates what a good artist Inoue is. Inoue stated it herself, "Good painters understand the importance of composition and color."