Portrait of Keiichi Tanaami, courtesy the artist, NANZUKA, Tokyo; and Venus Over Manhattan, New York.
Japanese artist Keiichi Tanaami, whose vivid, graphic style inspired generations of artists around the world, has died. He was 88 years old. The cause of death was a subarachnoid haemorrhage, which is usually caused by an aneurysm.
Tanaami’s visual language blended a range of global influences, including comics, advertising culture, spirituality and eroticism. Born in Tokyo in 1936, one of his earliest memories was of the firebombing of that city in 1945. He recalled seeing the glow of the explosions in the scales of his grandfather’s goldfish, a sight that was both beautiful and horrific. He infused that mixture of beauty and darkness into his artworks, creating a visual voice that made him an underground hero at first, and later established him as one of the most influential pioneers of Japanese contemporary art.
Tanaami’s works are in the collections of many of the most important museums in the world, including the MoMA, the Art Institute of Chicago, the M+ in Hong Kong, the Ikeda Museum of 20th Century Art in Japan or the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington.
