Yae Asano

During the second half of the 20th century, shared inspiration and mutual influences were discussed regarding two successful contemporary artists, the Japanese painter Yae Asano and the American painter Cy Twombly.
For that reason, the Akira Ikeda Gallery brought the two artists together for a joint exhibition in Tokyo, during October 1-20, 1987. At the time of the collective exhibition, Yae Asano executed the auction's painting "Work". This painting was later exhibited in Stockholm in 1987, at Japanska Galleriet.

The auction's painting "Work" (1987) is a brilliant example of a beautiful line painting, that includes Yae Asano's symbolic scratching technique. The paintings of Yae Asano have been praised for their scratching technique, but this is not as simple as it may sound. It is the result of original experiments with carving into the canvas and filling these tears with paint. In addition to oil paintings, Asano also produced many etchings and works on paper. His abstract works are said to express a uniquely Japanese aesthetic in the lyricism of their shapes and lines combining the old and the new.

The Toyota Municipal Museum of Art in Aichi owns a painting by Yae Asano from 1987, which is closely related to the painting in the upcoming auction.

The artist Yae Asano (1914-1996) was born in Suzuka in 1914, a city located on the Japanese south coast. After graduating from high school, he joined the army from 1932 and was sent to Manchuria for a year. In 1933, when he returned to Japan, he began to paint abstract works, having been influenced by Riichi Noda (1907-1987), a Japanese poet and art critic.

Largely self-taught, he developed his own unique abstract style free from conventional values that might come from an academic training. In 1957 he started to produce works using the hikkaki (scratching) method where he applied multiple paint layers, then scratched into the top surface before it dried, producing intricate designs. Rhythmic lines produce a lyrical and contemplative composition.

Yae Asano started with full-scale monochrome paintings of geometric figures in 1956, with a limited number of colors by the original technique of making screens with a drawing called "scratch" from the 1950s. Warmth and nostalgia on the hard impression screen may come from the handwriting drawn lines.

His paintings have entered many museum collections including The National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, Nagoya City Art Museum, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art in Nagoya, Mie Prefectural Art Museum, The Museum of Modern Art in Toyama, Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, The National Museum of Art in Kyoto, Chiba City Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art in Wakayama, Meguro Museum of Art and Oita City Art Museum.