The Early Career of Yamaguchi Katsuhiro: Vitrine Series in Historical Perspective

ABSTRACT:This article seeks to enhance our understanding of Japanese postwar art by focusing on the early career of Yamaguchi Katsuhiro, one of the major members of the famous 1950s avant garde group Jikken Kōbō (Experimental Workshop). This article also sheds light on the unique spatial environment of the artist’s house. His father had a two-story modernist study space built as an extension that was designed by the modernist painter Tōgō Seiji in the 1930s. This ultramodern house extension was a major influence on the work of the young Yamaguchi Katsuhiro. Another influence on Katsuhiro were postwar American art journals, which were full of information about new trends in the West and available to young Japanese artists through the Center of Information and Education Section established by the Americans.