Artist of the day, January 8: Kiyoshi Awazu, Japanese graphic designer

Kiyoshi Awazu, (1929 – 2009) legendary Japanese graphic designer, is celebrated for his contributions to poster and urban design.  Awazu was consistently considered among the upper echelon of Japanese graphic designers throughout his career, which began in the years following World War II

In his dedication to experimental expression, Kiyoshi Awazu traversed wide-ranging genres, saying, “In all expressive fields, I resolve to remove not only the boundaries among forms of expression; I will also remove class, category, disparity, and the upward and downward that have appeared in art.” A singular genius with a ceaseless interest in the world around him, Awazu took up art amid his country’s reconstruction from the ruins of war and went on to build a foundation for graphic design in Japan. He subsequently blazed a career cutting freely across the genres of painting, posters, prints, book design, architecture, music, film, performance, and theater.

Awazu was self-taught in painting and design. In 1955, he received the Japan Advertising Artists Club Award, and in 1958 won the Grand Prix at the World Film Poster Competition in France. In 1959, he established the Awazu Design Institute, now called the Awazu Design Room. While consistently remaining among the top ranks of Japanese designers, throughout his career, Awazu has engaged in a remarkably broad range of activities. These have included urban design, exhibition design and film production, and have been in collaboration with artists from fields spanning from architecture to music to literature to cinema. In 1997-8, a grand retrospective of his works was held in Poland at four national art museums. In more recent years, he has focused on visual communication, the very genesis of all design artistry through studies in areas such as pictographs and rock art, and he has launched works employing diverse production methods.

His works are included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), and the Museum of Modern Art, Toyama. Major awards received to date include a Japan Academy Award for art direction of the film Shinju Tenno-Amijima ('Double Suicide at Tenno-Amijima') in 1969, a Silver Medal and Special Mention at the 1970 Warsaw International Poster Biennale, and a Purple Ribbon Medal, awarded by the Japanese government to persons of outstanding artistic merit, in 1990.

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Mr Kiyoshi Awazu

1964, 4th International Biennial Exhibition of prints in Tokyo

1969, Double Suicide poster

1970's Advertising - Poster

1971, Anti War

1971, Surging Waves

1973, poster for The 5th Exhibition of Contemporary Japanese Sculpture

1977, the Kumehachi Troupe

1979,  May - iris, from the series Fantasies on Japanese playing cards

1979, AIGA eye on design

1979, April - Wisteria, from the series Fantasies on Japanese playing cards

1979, August - pampas grass, from the series Fantasies on Japanese playing cards

1979, June - tree peony, from the series Fantasies on Japanese playing cards

1979, March - flowering cherry, from the series Fantasies on Japanese playing cards

1979, September - chrysanthemum, from the series Fantasies on
Japanese playing cards

1981,  commemorative poster

1982,  paulownia, from the series Fantasies on Japanese playing cards

1982, February - plum, from the series Fantasies on Japanese playing cards

1982, January - pine, from the series Fantasies on Japanese playing cards

1982, July - bush clover, from the series Fantasies on Japanese playing cards

1983, Contemporary Japanese Art

1983, Tenth Contemporary Japanese Sculpture Exhibition

1991, The Festival of Japanese Contemporary Theater.