ART FAIR TOKYO 2026

NUKAGA GALLERY is pleased to announce our participation in Art Fair Tokyo 2026.

The gallery will exhibit works by Yuki Katsura, Takako Araki, Saori Akutagawa (Madokoro), Kimiyo Mishima, and Frank Stella.

Around 1960, the New York art scene, having emerged as the global epicenter, was filled with fervent ambition and rebellion against old values. It was a transitional period from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art and Minimalism. The five artists introduced here were also drawn to this exciting magnetic pull, heading to New York in search of an environment swirling with the raw energy of art and diverse values.

Yuki Katsura was born in 1913. She was the only female founding member of the Kyushitsu-kai of the Nika Association, Japan’s first avant-garde art group. In the 1930s, she developed meticulous depictions, collages using cork, and caricature-like expressions, producing oil paintings full of black humor that satirized social conditions through cartoonish methods.

After traveling to France in 1956, she went to Africa in 1958, and then to the United States. In New York, she resonated deeply with abstract painting, particularly Minimal Art. Her inherent inclination toward flat, two-dimensional composition was honed there; specific images were gradually stripped away, leading her to pure abstract composition. During her stay in New York, she produced many abstract works by layering washi (Japanese paper) on canvas, maintaining a sense of tactility and organic warmth. In 1960, she participated in the ‘Abstract Japanese Art exhibition’ at the Gres Gallery in Washington and the ‘Japanese-American Women Artists Exchange Exhibition’ at the Riverside Museum in New York alongside Yayoi Kusama, establishing a striking presence on the international stage as a pioneer among Japanese female artists. After returning to Japan on April 30, 1961, concrete motifs—such as legs—began to reappear from within her abstract forms, marking a return to vital imagery as seen in works like “Millipede( Senbon-ashi)”. Ultimately, Katsura’s artistic practice was elevated into a unique world of form, integrating the conflicting elements of abstraction and figuration, as well as tactility and flatness.

One of the beating hearts supplying energy to the New York art scene at the time was the Art Students League of New York(ASL). While it was a place to learn traditional techniques, it also functioned as a laboratory for breaking boundaries and launching new movements (such as Pop Art and Minimalism). It served as a default hub where ambitious young talents who did not fit into existing academic frameworks would “naturally gather”. Takako Araki and Saori Akutagawa were among the artists who immersed themselves in ASL, an institution defined by its open spirit, welcoming individuals regardless of race, class, or gender. In later years, Frank Stella also contributed to nurturing the next generation by giving dialogue-based lectures at ASL.

Takako Araki was born in 1921. She began creating glass objects in the 1950s, moved to the US in 1961, and studied sculpture at ASL. Exposure to this environment is considered a key formative influence that led to her subsequent development into structural, three-dimensional expression. After returning to Japan in 1962, she shifted her artistic focus to ceramics and began full-scale production. Her cylindrical forms made of black pottery and shapes resembling cut tubes attracted attention as structural three-dimensional works highly conscious of the material’s physicality. Furthermore, in her Bible series, which explored themes of religion and human existence, she presented the form of books as symbolic sculptures, distilling fundamental themes such as faith, memory, and time into tranquil forms. These works opened up a unique domain that treated ceramics not as vessels but as spiritual sculptures. Informed by the perspective on three-dimensional form she gained during her stay in America, her practice received high acclaim both domestically and internationally.

Saori Akutagawa(Madokoro) was born in 1924. Around 1950, she began working with dyeing and oil painting, largely self-taught, and her bold and unique works, such as her “Women” and “Myth and Folktale” series, attracted significant attention. She moved to the US in 1959, studied design in Los Angeles, and then studied drawing and oil painting at ASL from 1961. While her abstract paintings after moving to the US, with their limited color palettes and combinations of forms, may initially appear to be influenced by the Minimalism that was prevalent at the time, they pulse with organic forms and distinct brushstrokes. From the canvases where she spontaneously dripped wax to create a rich matière(texture) before applying oil paint, one can glimpse Akutagawa’s uncompromising dedication to her own artistic vision, refusing to pander to contemporary trends. She returned to Japan in 1962 and passed away prematurely in 1966 at the young age of 41. In recent years, she has been garnering significant attention from art scholars domestically and internationally.

Kimiyo Mishima, born in 1932, studied painting under Shigeji Mishima, a painter influenced by the Gutai Art Association, and began creating collage works using newspaper and magazine clippings in the early 1960s. She took a strong interest in the visual environment of modern society, which is overflowing with printed matter, and became conscious early on of the nature of an era defined by the deluge and instant consumption of information. In the 1970s, she established a distinctive practice by replacing the fragile, everyday printed matter that is typically discarded with ceramics, a material that remains semi-permanently. This approach questioned the nature of memory in modern civilization and the “fossilization” of information, earning her high praise for her sharp critique of the information society. In 1986, supported by a Rockefeller Foundation grant, she stayed in New York and experienced firsthand the reality of a rapidly advancing media society and urban mass consumption. Serving as a catalyst, this experience prompted the scale of her work to expand from the 1980s onward, developing into large-scale pieces that reproduced life-sized utility poles, trash bins, and rubble in ceramics.

Frank Stella was born in 1936. He emerged on the art scene as a pioneering figure at the turning point from the “hot abstraction” of the 1960s to Minimalism. He began painting at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and went on to study at Princeton University, where he continued painting while majoring in history. Upon graduating in 1958, he moved to New York after graduation, and quickly garnered attention in the late 1950s with his “Black Paintings”. He distanced himself from the emotional and gestural approach of Abstract Expressionism, clarifying his stance of treating painting as a physical and structural object, and established himself as a pioneer of Minimal Art.

The “Protractor Series”, developed in the late 1960s, marked a major turning point in his style. “Sinjerli”, the title of the related work, refers to an ancient city of the Hittite Empire that reached its peak in the 14th century BC, characterized by a circular fortress structure surrounded by double walls. This geometric structure is thought to have been the source of inspiration for Stella’s canvas compositions based on arcs and divisions. The colors seen in the work are arranged not as sensory expressions, but as color variations based on strict calculation, visualizing the painter’s logical thought process. In this way, Stella redefined painting not as “something that depicts something else,” but as “a site presenting the relationship between structure and color itself,” making him a painter who exerted a decisive influence on the development of postwar abstract painting.

Please come and experience the diverse expressions of these artists, each of whom has shed their background to face their art simply as a creator.

We look forward to seeing you at booth S019.

★More Information ⇒ http://artfairtokyo.com/