Inosuke Hazama

Japanese Inozuke Hazama was a Western-style painter and printmaker. He dropped out of Keio University in order to study at Tojiro Oshita’s Japan Watercolor Society learning French at night. After early success at the exhibitions of the Nika-kai (Second Section Association), he studied in 1921-29 and 1933-35 in France, with Henri Matisse during the second period. Hazama married a Frenchwoman. In 1926, he became a board member of the Shun’yō-kai group and two years later took part in the Japanese Creative Prints Association Exhibition for the first time. In the 1920s and the 1930s Hazama made both woodblock prints and lithographs. It is said that Hitler bought his litho “Young rowers” that was presented at the 1936 Berlin Arts Competition. The following year, he was one of the founders of the Ichisuikai Art Group.

In 1941, Hazama was appointed director of the art section of the Bunka Gakuin School and in 1944 assistant professor at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. His studio on the Hongo campus burned down during an air raid on Tokyo in 1945. Two years after the end of World War II, he was designated as chairman of the Japan Art Association. In 1950-51 he helped organize Matisse and Picasso exhibitions. On his return to Japan in the 1950s Hazama mainly occupied himself with pottery and porcelain decoration, in particular the so-called Kutani ware, a style of Japanese porcelain first developed in the village of Kutani (now part of the city of Kaga). His style was known for bright colors and the modern style of intellectual composition. In 1973, he received the Sino-Japanese Culture Award.