Genichiro Inokuma was a Japanese modernist painter who bridged Eastern and Western aesthetics through abstraction, color, and wit. Best known in Japan for his vibrant postwar canvases and public murals, Inokuma also spent two formative decades living and working in New York, where he found new artistic freedom and a cosmopolitan community that deeply shaped his mature style.

Born in Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture, Inokuma studied at the Tokyo Fine Arts School (now Tokyo University of the Arts), where he was influenced by the Japanese yōga (Western-style) painting tradition. In the 1930s, he spent time in Paris, studying under Foujita Tsuguharu and immersing himself in the European avant-garde. After returning to Japan, he became an established painter and helped found the Shinseisaku Kyōkai (New Production Association), but wartime demands and censorship pushed him into military and propaganda work—a past he rarely discussed.

In the aftermath of the war, Inokuma sought a fresh start. In 1955, at age 53, he moved to New York with the help of his friend and patron, architect Junzō Yoshimura, who had recently worked with MoMA on the reconstruction of the Shofuso house in Philadelphia and had connections in the New York art world. Yoshimura assisted Inokuma in establishing himself in Manhattan, where he first lived on 95th Street and later moved to 21st Street in Chelsea. Though he was older than many of his peers, Inokuma thrived in the city’s atmosphere of experimentation and anonymity.

Inokuma’s New York paintings mark a turning point in his career. Moving away from figurative forms, he developed a playful abstract vocabulary, floating lines, circles, brushy textures, and bold colors, that captured what he called the “mood” of everyday life. His motifs included street signs, buildings, animals, and people reduced to symbolic forms. Works like City of Humans (1959) reflect both his fascination with urban energy and his sense of humor. He once said, “I paint what I see in the corners of daily life.”

While in New York, he was also influenced by American consumer culture, which he admired for its vibrancy. He exhibited at the Bertha Schaefer Gallery and other venues, receiving attention from critics and collectors. Yet he maintained strong ties with Japan, holding exhibitions in Tokyo and receiving commissions such as the mural for Ueno Station (1951).

Inokuma returned permanently to Japan in 1975, but the legacy of his New York years continued to inform his later work. His final decades were marked by large-scale public art and the founding of the Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art (MIMOCA) in 1991, which he helped design as a gift to his hometown.

Though less widely known in the U.S. today, Inokuma’s time in New York represents a critical chapter in the postwar history of Japanese artists abroad. His work stands as a unique expression of transpacific modernism, joyful, idiosyncratic, and deeply engaged with the visual rhythms of city life.

Reference:

Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art (MIMOCA), 猪熊弦一郎 ニューヨーク時代 [Genichiro Inokuma: The New York Years] (Marugame: MIMOCA, 2002)