Lot 7: Masaaki Yamada (1929-2010) Work D.27

Masaaki Yamada (1929-2010)
Work D.27
1970

signed in English and Japanese, dated 1970 and affixed with two artist labels on the reverse
oil on canvas

162.4 x 112 cm (63 15/16 x 44 1/8 in)

We are grateful to the Estate of Yamada Masaaki for confirming the cataloguing of the present work.
For further information on this lot please visit the website

Provenance
Gallery Yonetsu, TokyoPrivate Collection, Japan
山田正亮
作品D.27油彩畫布1970年作
簽名：1970 m yamada 山田正亮 一九七零年（背面）藝術家標籤兩張（背面）
我們由衷感謝山田正亮遺產管理委員會確認此拍品資料
來源
東京Yonetsu畫廊日本私人收藏
Japanese artist Yamada Masaaki began his artistic career in Post War Japan where the nation was rebuilding itself from the ruins of the Second World War. Against this historic backdrop, he had the opportunity to change the trajectory of the painting discipline by completely re-examining the fundamental elements in visual expressions. He discovered that seemingly basic aspects of painting such as colour harmony, lines, and compositional proportions do in fact interact and juxtapose with each other when they are reassembled and repeated. This new understanding of visual expressions formed the basis of Yamada Masaaki's unique and exuberant approach in abstraction. Looking back at the course of development of the painting discipline in the 20th century, it is evident that Yamada Masaaki constructed a coherent system of abstract language through his prolific artistic output.
Work is a series of paintings that spans over four decades of Yamada Masaaki's oeuvre, and it represents the very core of the artist's creative practice. In the sale, we are honoured to present two major works from this most iconic series. These abstract works are the crystallization of Yamada's systematic investigation into Formalism by deconstructing the very nature of painting itself. In the Work series, Yamada takes intertwining patterns and transforms them into orderly strips that emphasise the texture of flatness in the painting medium. Work B. 134 is a prime example of the organic forms that he used extensively in early works from the series. Colour planes in blue, white, green, and brown interlock with each other to form a whirlpool of hues. Such expression subverts the representation style that the artist adopted in his Still Life series. In this work, organic lines are harmoniously integrated into the spatial composition, thus creating a vine-like foliage pattern. Such treatment brings the intuitive nature of the artist's hand to the fore. Abstract works that feature this arabesque pattern are exceptionally rare. For this reason, this painting was prominently featured in the endless: The Paintings of Yamada Masaaki exhibition at both the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo and National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto in 2016.
Completed in 1970, Work D. 27 exemplifies Yamada's artistic principles of 'all-colors,' 'the equivalence of colors,' and 'totality'. It was during this period that Yamada greatly reduced his palette to just two to three colours. With unprecedented precision, Yamada meticulously painted parallel lines with varying thicknesses in yellow and purple. A sense of synergy is achieved when these two colours resonate with each other. Balancing the myriad of tones of such fine lines on a large canvas requires extraordinary power of concentration. Not only does this treatment give the work an ineffable sense of tactility and hand-painted expressiveness, it also testifies to Yamada Masaaki's pursuit in spirituality and philosophical cultivation in painting. Similar to On Kawara's seminal series Today, every work by Yamada is a self-contained chapter. And over the course of many decades, these c... For further information on this lot please visit the Bonhams website