Commemorating the Japanese-style painter who consistently pursued the expression of landscapes, we are pleased to hold the exhibition of Okumura Koichi (1904-1974) in 2024, marking the 120th anniversary of his birth and the 50th anniversary of his death.

This will be a large-scale retrospective exhibition of Okumura Koichi since 1976, when a posthumous exhibition of him was held at the Kyoto City Museum of Art. Born in the city of Kyoto in 1904, Okumura Koichi enrolled in the Kyoto City Specialist School of Painting and simultaneously became a pupil of Nishimura Goun. He won his first prize at the 10th government-sponsored exhibition (Teiten) in 1929 for his work, Mountain Village. Okumura distinctively captured the seasons with his precise brushstrokes in his landscape expressions, and focused mainly on presenting his works at government-sponsored exhibitions with landscape paintings of places such as Kyoto and Shinshu (Nagano). He received special prize in 1946 with his work Fine Morning, which depicts rows of trees covered in snow under the serene atmosphere.

Since then, after two years, Okumura parted from government-sponsored exhibitions and formed the painting group, Sozo Bijutsu (literally “Creation of Art”) with Yamamoto Kyujin, Uemura Shoko, and Fuku Akino in 1948, and devoted to creating new Japanese-style paintings. Questioning his past Japanese-style painting expressions and strictly redefining his works, Okumura pursued to change his landscape expressions from using delicate lines to using thick outlines, which captures the subject in a larger plane. Moreover, a new style of drawing was born, which boldly abstracts the subject of painting by making a close-up of the subject that emphasizes on natural phenomenon such as violent waves and clouds, as well as the life-filled vitality of the trees.

In this exhibition, we will look back at works of Okumura Koichi from his early works to works of his later years, by selecting representative works from each period, as well as presenting his sketches from the collection of the Kyoto City Museum of Art. These works of sketches reveal the origin behind Okumura’s production, who traveled all over Japan, faced fierce nature and landscapes, and elaborately captured their presence with outstanding composition and sound sketches.