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From Kyoto, Japan

Aki Kuroda

B. 1944

Born in Kyoto in 1944,  Aki Kuroda (黒田アキ) expressed interest in art his entire life and painted his first work at the age of four. His family significantly influenced Kuroda as a young boy; his father brought him magazines such as Le Minotaure from Paris. Through these magazines, Kuroda discovered the work of painters like Picasso and Dalí, which inspired him at this early stage in his artistic career. These resources were extremely valuable to the self-taught artist. In the 1960s, Kuroda traveled in Europe, and he eventually elected to settle in Paris in 1970. Kuroda struggled during his early years in Paris and planned to give up and return to Japan until a chance encounters with French-American writer and filmmaker Marguerite Duras, the Spanish artist Joan Miró, and the gallerist Adrien Maeght reversed his fortunes. The acclaimed participation of Aki Kuroda in the 11th Paris Biennial in 1980 launched his career in a meaningful way. 

 

Bucking traditional hierarchy, Kuroda was the youngest artist to have a solo exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo in 1993. Both acclaimed artists Yoshitomo Nara and Takashi Murakami pay tribute to Kuroda in their memories for influencing their careers. In 2007 Kuroda became the first Japanese artist to be exhibited in China at the Beijing Imperial Museum and at the TS1 Museum.

 

Aki Kuroda’s work is in several public collections worldwide, including in Japan at The National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo and The National Museum of Art in Osaka; in France at the City of Paris Collection, the Marguerite and Aimé Maeght Foundation in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Strasbourg; in Ireland the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in Dublin; and in Netherlands at the  Peter Stuyveson Foundation in Amsterdam.

 

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