Strata and Cleavage

1960

American, born Japan 1906 - 1999

Chikamasa Horiuchi—who called himself Paul after his heroes, Paul Cézanne and Pablo Picasso—was born in Oishi, Japan, and studied calligraphy and painting there as a youth before immigrating to Seattle as a teenager. In Seattle, he was taken in temporarily by his cousin Shigetoshi Horiuchi, a dealer and collector of Japanese antiquities, before traveling to Wyoming to join his family and rise through the ranks of the Union Pacific Railroad—a career cut short with World War II and the abrupt suspension of opportunities for Japanese Americans.

Horiuchi began making torn-paper collages in 1954, after seeing the peeled layers of advertisements on the walls of buildings in Seattle’s International District. In this example, torn paper resembles expressionistic brushwork, signaling Horiuchi’s close alignment with Abstract Expressionism.

Mulberry paper with gouache mounted on board

54 1/4 x 40 7/8 in. (137.8 x 103.8 cm)

Overall: 54 7/8 x 41 1/2 in.

Northwest Annual Purchase Fund

61.131

Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle World's Fair, Playhouse Lobby, 1962.

Tacoma, Washington, University of Puget Sound, Northwest Art, 1963.

Mount Vernon, Washington, Skagit Valley College, Festival of the Arts 1964.

Wenatchee, Washington, Wenatchee Valley College, Northwest Artists, 1965.

Seattle, Washington, Capitol Hill Caroussel, 1966.

Eugene, Oregon, Museum of Art, University of Oregon, and the Seattle Art Museum, Washington, Paul Horiuchi: 50 Years of Painting, 1969.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Paul Horiuchi, Mar. 9, 2000 - June 11, 2000.

Yamanashi-ken, Japan, Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Art, Paul Horiuchi: Japanese Sensitivity Preserved in the Pacific Northwest, Sept. 27 - Nov. 24, 2003.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Northwest Modernism: Four Japanese Americans, Mar. 20, 2021 - June 5, 2022 [on view Mar. 16 - June 5, 2022].

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

Learn more about Equity at SAM