Tsuruko Yamazaki was a Japanese visual artist, known for an abstract, experimental style and her use of non-traditional materials. She was a founding member of the Gutai group, an avant-garde artists' collective.
Biography
Yamazaki was born in 1925 in Ashiya, Hyōgo, Japan. In 1946, she met the painterJiro Yoshihara when he instructed an art workshop she attended in Ashiya. Yamazaki was an active member of the Gutai group from its founding in 1954 until its disbandment in 1972. She participated in all of the Gutai group's exhibitions, including its first, The Experimental Outdoor Exhibition of Modern Art to Challenge the Midsummer Sun, held in Ashiya Park; and later exhibitions at Martha Jackson Gallery, New York ; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam ; and the 45th and 53rd Venice Biennale. Her first solo exhibition was held at the Gutai Pinacotheca, the Gutai group's museum, in 1963. Other solo exhibitions included shows at Ashiya City Museum of Art and History ; Galerie Almine Rech in Paris ; and at Take Ninagawa in Tokyo. Yamazaki was known for a colourful abstract style, for her interest in non-traditional materials and for her "investigations into chemical and physical transformation". For the Gutai group's first show, in Tokyo, Yamazaki arranged a series of 25 dyed tin cans upon the floor. Her work Red consists of a large floating cube of red vinyl stretched over a wooden frame and was first featured at the Outdoor Gutai Art Exhibition in 1956; versions of this work were also featured in a number of exhibits afterwards, including at the Hyōgo Prefectural Museum of Art; at the Guggenheim Museum in New York; and at Art Basel in 2016. In 1957, she began experimenting with two-dimensional tin pieces, stained with aniline dye. Later works explored geometric patterns, pop art-inspired imagery, and the use of dye on various surfaces. Yamazaki was credited for being a "pivotal figure in the Japanese avant-garde movement." She died on June 12, 2019, at the age of 94.
