August 2009
Kosho Shimizu left a large body of work when he died in 1999. Most of his oeuvre is held in the Shosha Art and Craft Museum, Himeji. Kosho’s art is not abundantly available on the art market. Most of the pieces in the exhibition at BachmannEckenstein come out of Japanese private collections and have been gathered over a period of some years. This is the first exhibition of Kosho’s art outside of Japan.
Kosho Shimizu, born 1911 in Himeji, was a monk, priest and abbot of Todai-ji temple in Nara. Seki Seisetsu (1877-1945) a prominent Zen artist was Kosho’s teacher when he was young. At that time Kosho must have had his first intense encounter with Zen art. But for some reasons he did not engage in the production of art himself until much later. In the course of his monastic career Kosho found initial artistic inspiration when he was director of the temple’s kindergarten. He happened to see children creating clay figures with their hands. He was struck by the creative process, impulsive and performed without thinking. Kosho started making first attempts, with much passion, enthusiasm and success. Over a short period of time he created a huge crowd of clay figures, of Buddhist imagery, some of which have been cast in bronze. This first step was followed by works on paper. Small sized series of everyday scenes, travels, and festivals. All populated by grotesque monks. This was an eccentric contrast to the severe and organized monastic world he lived in. Besides from that Kosho created remarkable paintings and calligraphies. But Kosho not only worked on paper but also on ceramics. He worked with different potters and added his art onto theirs.
Kosho’s work is represented in some western museums, most prominent among them, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney.
|