About

Spanning five decades of work, this presentation introduces Los Angeles to Sadamasa Motonaga, a unique figure whose trajectory bridges contemporary Japanese Superflat painting with the existential artistic concerns of the immediate postwar era. Motonaga was born in 1922 in Japan’s mountainous Mie Prefecture. After working on the railroads and in munitions plants during World War II, the self-taught painter became a founding member of the Gutai Art Association, an avant-garde movement formed in reaction against the country’s restriction of art to nationalistic ends. As a part of Gutai, he …