Ryonosuke Fukui

Biography

Born in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, in 1923. After graduating early from the Metal Casting Course of the Craft Department at Tokyo Fine Arts School (now Tokyo University of the Arts), he then evacuated to his mother’s hometown of Ichinoseki, Iwate prefecture where he became an art teacher at the junior high school. He developed an interest in the decorative effects of mimeographs, sparked by an invitation card for the dance class that was created by Jiro Senda, who was the homeroom teacher of the class in which Fukui was an assistant teacher, and was a skilled mimeograph technician. After retiring from the Ichinoseki Junior High school, he moved to Tokyo in 1952. Fukui visited his brother-in-law's mimeograph printing studio to learn the techniques and started to make a living by working part-time jobs connected with painting. From that period, he also began creating his own mimeographic works at a full-scale.

In 1959, he held his first solo exhibition at Nihonbashi Gallery in Tokyo. His exquisite works with distinctive grace that is unique to him, which cannot be found in Europe or the U.S. amazed the collectors, beginning with American collectors who were resident in Japan, and subsequently he expanded his activities overseas such as holding an solo-exhibition in the U.S. and Australia and participating international prints art exhibitions. As he became famous, he began focusing on the oil paintings, a medium he had been long working with, and rarely created mimeographs in the 1970s. The works he produced intensively for only about 10 years had the power to renew the impression of mimeographs, which was so familiar to people's daily lives and so far removed from the realm of art. He became a popular “Western-style painter” known for his snow scenes and depictions of maiko (apprentice geisha), but passed away suddenly in 1986 at the age of 62 due to illness.