December #2

1959

American, born Japan 1906 - 1999

Horiuchi and his brother emigrated from Japan to the U. S. in 1920, a few years after his parents began a new life in Wyoming. At fifteen, he was working for the Union Pacific railroad. At the outbreak of the World War II, all Japanese workers were fired. Paul, his wife, and their three sons made their way to Seattle, where he opened an antique shop—Tozai Art, which means “east west”—continued painting, and met Mark Tobey and other Northwest painters. Trips to his homeland in 1958–59 let loose a new and dramatic direction in his work, which moved beyond gestural, somber landscapes to bold experiments with minimal color and form, based upon an old Japanese collage technique call shikishi. His use of collage was further inspired by the layers of weathered and torn posters that hung on walls in Seattle’s International District. This painting reveals the artist’s deep connection to Wyoming’s landscape: Horiuchi captures its monumental and sublime geography, created from millions of years of geological upheaval.

Gouache and paper on canvas

Frame: 65 × 39 in. (165.1 × 99.1 cm)

Northwest Annual Purchase Fund

59.158

Photo: Paul Macapia

Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, 45th Annual Exhibition of Northwest Artists, 1959.

Colorado Springs, Colorado, Colorado Springs Fine Art Center, New Accessions USA, 1960.

Tacoma, Washington, Kittredge Gallery, University of Puget Sound, Northwest Painting, 1969.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Northwest Traditions, June 29 - Dec. 10, 1978.

Olympia, Washington, Governor's Mansion, Aug. 1982 - Nov. 1983.

Tacoma, Washington, Tacoma Art Museum, Paul Horiuchi: Master of the Collage, Nov.19, 1987 - Jan. 17, 1988.

La Conner, Washington, Museum of Northwest Art, Northwest Art: Shaped by Hand, Shaped by the Spirit, Sept. 28 - Dec. 31, 1995.

New Brunswick, New Jersey, Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, Asian Traditions/Modern Expressions: Asian American Artists and Abstraction, Mar. 23 -July 31, 1997.

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, 2003 - Nov. 24, 2003.

La Conner, Washington, Museum of Northwest Art, Paul Horiuchi: East and West, Mar. 15, 2008 - June 15, 2008.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, American Art: The Stories We Carry, Oct. 20, 2022 - ongoing.

Published ReferencesJohns, Barbara, "Paul Horiuchi East and West", Universtiy of Washington Press, 2008, pp.77

Clark, Sarah, Charles Cowles and Martha Kingsbury. Northwest Traditions, ex. cat. Seattle, Washington: Seattle Art Museum, 1978. p. 105

Wechsler, Jeffrey. "Asian Traditions, modern expressions: Asian American artists and abstraction, 1945-1970". Exh. cat. New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, 1997, p. 97, fig. 112.

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.

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