Festival Mountain

Born in Kobe in 1919, Kumi Sugai was Japanese contemporary artist who worked energetically in Paris soon after the World War II. He studied paintings while engaging in commercial design. He moved to Paris in 1952 and began producing powerful and pictographic works having Informel-like heavy massive matière. Then he started producing bright-color paintings with symbolized color compositions. Sugai’s works in the 1970s became increasingly geometrical by employing circles and straight lines. During the period from the 1980s to last years of his life, Sugai produced a series of works using “S,” the initial of Sugai and the shape reminding consecutive curves on a road, as a motif. Sugai never stayed on a single style and continued to seek new paintings throughout his life.

The Festival series, which has less colors and figurations, is composed of bright-color circles, rectangles, and stripes. The clear and bold layout that evokes traffic and directional signs conjures speed and tension of sports car that kept Sugai fascinated.