Art and literary critic Hariu Ichiro died on May 26 in Kawasaki. The cause of death was attributed to heart failure. He was 84.
Hariu’s writings during the 1950s and ’60s, focusing primarily on avant-garde art, earned him the reputation (together with Higashino Yoshiaki and Nakahara Yusuke) as one of Japan’s ‘big three’ post-war art critics.
Born in 1925 in Sendai, Hariu graduated in literature form Tohoku University in 1948 and earned his masters in art from the University of Tokyo. He began writing art criticism soon after graduating from Tohoku University and participated in the avant-garde art group Yoru no kai founded by Okamoto Taro and critic Harada Kiyoteru. Hariu acted as commissioner of the Japanese pavilion for the 1968 Venice Biennale in 1968 and for the 1Bienal Internacional de Artes de São Paulo in 1977 and 1979. He recently appeared in the documentary film Nihon-shinju(2005). He is the author of Geijutsu no zenei and Sengo bijutsu seisuishi and translator of Walter Benjimain’s Surrealism. He had had professorships at Tama Art University, Wako University and Okayama Prefectural University, and had been Chairman of AICA Japan.
