Aso Saburo (1913–2000) was born in Tokyo and first interested in avant-garde paintings. His travel in Europe in 1938, however, made him recognize the importance of realistic representation anew. During the war when the freedom of expression was constrained, he formed the Shinjin Ga-kai (New Painters’ Group) with his friends including Matsumoto Shunsuke and Ai-Mitsu to maintain individual expression in the adverse situation. After the war, he developed expression that gets to the kernel of human existence as typified by the series Red Sky.
Human bodies in Aso’s works assert themselves against the steamrolling pressure from surrounding space, producing intense conflict on the picture plane. Emerging slowly from the chaotic space, their figures strongly impress us with the irreplaceableness of human existence. The more time we spend looking at his apparently elusive paintings, they speak the more.
Aso Saburo was a painter who never ceased to explore the relationship between real space and pictorial space while maintaining tension with society. His exploration will offer rich suggestions for today's paintings. The first full-scale retrospective in fifteen years, this exhibition presents 134 pieces including oils, drawings and three-dimensional works spanning Aso’s career. We hope it can be an opportunity to review his exploration into pictorial expression and its present-day significance.

Red Sky, 1956, oil on canvas, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo

A Group 3, 1970, oil on canvas, The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura and Hayama