"Sumi-E (Japanese Brush Painting) Works on Paper by Koho Yamamoto, Sensei and her Students"
2003-10-25 until 2003-11-30
Westbeth Artist Housing, Studio A101
New York, NY, USA United States of America

For the next two weekends, there will be an exhibition of Sumi-E (Japanese Brush Painting) featuring Koho Yamamoto, Sensei, and her students. Koho Yamamoto is the daughter of a master calligrapher and poet. She has practiced calligraphy since her early childhood in Japan. Koho learned her art from the late professor, Chiura Obata, a well-known Sumi-E artist and Professor Emeritus of Art at the University of California. During World War II, the people of Japanese ancestry who lived on the West Coast were relocated, the families were moved to the Topaz Detention Center in Utah, where Prof. Obata became Director of Topaz Art School and taught Sumi-E.

Koho Yamamoto was among his students. Excelling in his Sumi-E class, she was given a part of Prof. Obata's art name, Koho, which is a symbol of spiritual succession and to teach Sumi-E to the world.

After the war Ms. Yamamoto came to New York City and studied oil painting at the Art Students League, where she was awarded the Allen Tucker Scholarship. She joined 'Galley 84" one of the original 10th street Cooperative Art Galleries, and presented a one-woman show. An "Art News"-critic described her paintings as "fantastic dark landscapes". In December 1973, she had an outstanding exhibition of Sumi-E at the Japan Cultural Center in New York. Of her exhibit at the Kenshaw Gallery in Woodstock, Mr. Peter Moscoso-Gongora, an art critic for Ulster County Townsman, wrote, "The work speaks for itself in its pristine grace, its concise brush work, its tendency toward idealism... its remarkable merits will not be questioned". The world renowned sculptor, late Isamu Noguchi, in his letter to Koho wrote, "I find your paintings to be exceptionally beautiful".

Koho has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions in New York City and State, New Jersey, Connecticut, Japan, China, and South America. She has been an adjunct lecturer, and held classes for Columbia University, Drew University, New York University, Fairleigh, Dickenson University, University of Hartford, Bridgeport University and Parsons School of Design. She also has taught at the Educational Alliance Art School, Japanese American Society of New Jersey, Nippon Museum, and New York Open Center. In the New York Art Review 1988, Koho Yamamoto was listed as one of the leading artists of New York. Also to her credit, she has been commissioned by publishers, advertising agencies and television corporations for her distinctive style and skill in Sumi-e and Calligraphy.

Ms. Yamamoto is the founder and only teacher of the Koho School of Sumi-E, at 64 MacDougal street in New York City, where she exhibits her painting and has conducted classes in brush painting for the past 30 years. She also continues to paint large paintings in her unique and energetic style. In this exhibition will also be work by her students, some of whom have studied with Ms. Yamamoto for many years. There will be works in the traditional themes of sumi-e as well as contemporary images which have been created using the traditional brushstrokes of sumi-e.

IMAGE
Untitled by Koho

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for the State of New York

Other Important Exhibitions in New York