New iPad, Reflections on Artist Hitoshi Nakazato

iPad images, byNicole Maynard

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Master printmaker Hitoshi Nakazato died July 17th from a head injury due to a fall in his studio. He was seventy-four. I had the opportunity to study printmaking with Hitoshi at the University of Pennsylvania where he showed me how to do etching, lithography, and silkscreen. "He called Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania the place of his intellectual awakening," said his wife, Sumiko Takeda Nakazato. Teaching from 1971 until the present and serving as chair in the mid-nineties, he had a strong commitment to the school. Always full of stories, he told us to appreciate relationships with our peers as we journeyed through graduate school at Penn.

His paintings and prints focused on the particular placement of simple geometric shapes: the circle, triangle, and square, vibrant in color and zen-like. The Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts in Tokyo exhibited more than 400 of his works this summer. He was a very kind man in addition to being an artist and teacher.

iPad: Like Morris Louis, Green Blue Triangle Red, Cloud on Land

Like Morris Louis

Green Blue Triangle Red

Cloud on Land

Green Blue Triangle Red seems primordial. The red makes it seem like we are looking through a tepee: the door drawn back allowing the opening to be filled with the bright landscape of summer. Compositionally and coloristically (I don't think those are real words but we painters use them all the time) they relate to painter Morris Louis. Morris Louis , an Abstract Expressionist and a central figure in the development of Color Field Painting. He was inspired to experiment with paint applications of newly available acrylic paints after seeing Helen Frankenthaler's Mountain and Sea, the first "stain painting". [See Louis' 1961 Alpha-Theta] I was privileged to have Frankenthaler speak at my small departmental graduation ceremony for the MFA department at the University of Pennsylvania in 1996. Her speech was regrettably short (she seemed excited to get to her private showing of the Cezanne show up at the Philadelphia Museum of Art) but she got to the point which is what we often wish speech-givers would do. I will never forget her clear message, "Use your skills." She knew we were accomplished and understood how art can get pushed aside. She's now eighty-two and I am not alone in appreciating her contribution of luminous, energetic spaces. I haven't heard anything about her owning an ipad. I wonder what she would do.

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[A most excellent website: http://www.theartstory.org

It's mission statement:

"The Art Story Foundation's official statement of purpose is to: "Educate, inform, and introduce people to modern art through speaker series, educational workshops, and online educational resources".

Nicole is all excited!]