Shozo Shimamoto (1928-2013)

A co-founder of the post-war avant-garde group, the Gutai Art Association, the artist Shozo Shimamoto died Jan 25 of sudden heart failure at hospital in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, it has been reported. He was 85.
Shimamoto was born in Osaka in 1928, and graduated from the Kwansei Gakuin University. He was among the artists who founded the Gutai Art Association in 1954, and is credited with proposing the group’s name. Stretching the boundaries between painting and performance, he became known for paintings made by projecting paint onto the canvas from a handmade canon. He was also president of Able Art Japan, the Japanese Association for Disabled Artists.
Shimamoto’s passing comes on the heels of a comprehensive survey of the Gutai group held in 2012 at the National Art Center, Tokyo, and just weeks before the Feb 15 opening of “Gutai: Splendid Playground,” a large-scale survey at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

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