Yasuo Sumi
He graduated in economics from the Kansai University in 1947 and from the Risumeikan University in 1950. He became a teacher at the present Yodo Commercial High School in Osaka in 1949 and met Shozo Shimamoto in 1954, who was working as a teacher at the same school.
Shimamoto, fascinated by Sumi’s natural vocation in using the colors in a wild and dirty manner, involved Sumi in the Gutai group, and Sumi was officially part of the group in July 1955 attending the first Experimental Outdoor Exhibition of Modern Art in Ashiya.
His paintings, disharmonious and dense, were soon appreciated for all their instinctive and spontaneous originality thanks to the important reviews of Jiro Yoshihara. Yoshihara quoted Sumi among the members of the Group in all his public interventions, issued among the ’50s and 60s’ within the Gutai Journal. In the essential Manifesto of Gutai art, dated December 1956, (published in Geijutsu shincho magazine), Sumi was mentioned for this original way of painting by using a vibrator to spread frantically the colour on the canvas.
He moved in Itami City in 1959 where he lived the rest of his life, spent with his wife Yoko.
After joining Gutai, Sumi became a member of the International Art Club, the group represented by Taro Okamoto. Both the groups broke up later and the joined Artist Union in 1975. The group was then represented by Shozo Shimamoto and renamed as Art Unidentified. Sumi participated consecutively to all the exhibitions. In the 2000s his activities were mainly centered in Italy.
Collections in Japan
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Kyoto National Museum of Art, Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art (Yamamura Collection), Osaka National Museum of Art, Ashiya City Museum of Art and History, Miyagi Museum of Art, Fukuoka Art Museum, Shoto Museum of Art (Shibuya), Itami City Museum of Art, Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, Chiba City Museum of Art, Tanabe City Museum of Art, Urawa Art Museum, Nakamoto Seishi Art Museum (Sendai), Gendaikko Museum, Itami Town Hall, Itami Hospital, Itami city Hotel
