The Breaking of The Seventh Seal - Birth of Artist

Tadanori Yokoo is a Japanese contemporary artist born in Hyogo Prefecture in 1936. Being a successful graphic designer in the 1960s, Yokoo established his unique style in the late 1960s by designing stage posters for playwrights, including Tatsumi Hijikata, Juro Kara, and Shuji Terayama. He also developed personal relationships with photographer Eikoh Hosoe, author Yukio Mishima, and film director Nagisa Oshima through collaborations. Yokoo’s distinctive style, the fusion of Japanese Pop art and avant-garde art, won popularity and gained international recognition, which led to his solo show at Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1972. After seeing a Picasso show in 1980, Yokoo declared that he would define himself as a painter in 1981. Since the declaration, his activities as a “fine artist” continue to this day with the focus of creation on paintings.

The Breaking of The Seventh Seal - Birth of Artist is based on Fra Angelico’s Annunciation. The title is a quote from Chapter 6 of Apocalypse of John in the New Testament describing the end of the world. At the lower right of the canvas is the androgynous figure born from the lying woman stretching arms toward Archangel Gabriel. The painting depicts the story of the birth of the artist (i.e. Yokoo himself) at the end of the world.