Hiroki Morinoue

Last updated

Hiroki Morinoue (born 1947) is an American artist of Japanese descent who has helped to pioneer in the United States the fusion of western Impressionism with modern Japanese design.

Contents

'Butterfly Kimono', woodcut by Hiroki Morinoue, 2006 'Butterfly Kimono', woodcut by Hiroki Morinoue, 2006.jpg
'Butterfly Kimono', woodcut by Hiroki Morinoue, 2006

Early life

Morinoue was born in Kealakekua and raised near Holualoa, formerly a major coffee plantation town in the mountains above Kailua-Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii. Japanese workers were imported from Japan at the turn of the 20th century to Hawaii to work the plantations. Although the coffee plantations are gone, Holualoa remains a major producer and exporter of Kona coffee from a cooperative of private growers. In addition, a large artist colony has taken hold in the town itself.

Education

Morinoue studied at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California, where he received his BFA degree. Later, while in Japan, Morinoue studied with a master sumi-e artist and a master of woodblock printing. Morinoue still makes his home in Holualoa, on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Works

It was Morinoue's seemingly abstract paintings of calm water on textured wood or woodblock prints that propelled him to prominence. The play of light on pebbles at the bottom of a creek or pond, bubbles, ripples, or the reflection on the surface of water are combined with a Japanese sense of balance and design in intense shades of aqua, black and blue creating art of refined, serene elegance. Subsequent works show a trend towards abstract art, experimentation in warmer palettes, rougher strokes, various subject matters and media such as ceramics and photography.

Hiroki Morinoue can be seen in several public and private collections in the USA (particularly in Hawaii) and Japan.

Selected Collections

Related Research Articles

Masami Teraoka

Masami Teraoka is an American contemporary artist. His work includes Ukiyo-e-influenced woodcut prints and paintings in watercolor and oil.

Toshiko Takaezu was an American ceramic artist, painter, sculptor, and educator who was known for her rounded, closed forms that viewed ceramics as a fine art and more than a functional vessel. She is of Japanese descent and from Pepeeko, Hawaii.

Charles W. Bartlett English painter and printmaker (1860–1940)

Charles William Bartlett was an English painter and printmaker who settled in Hawaii.

John Chin Young American painter (1909–1997)

John Chin Young 容澤泉 (1909–1997) was a painter who was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on March 26, 1909. He was the son of Chinese immigrants and began drawing at the age of eight, stimulated by Chinese calligraphy, which he learned in Chinese language school. Young had his first and only art lessons while a student at President William McKinley High School in Honolulu. Thereafter, his art was entirely self-taught. Young is best known for his Zen-like depictions of horses, paintings of children, and abstractions. Over the years, he acquired an important collection of ancient Asian art, which he donated to the Honolulu Museum of Art and the University of Hawaii at Manoa as the John Young Museum. John Chin Young died in 1997 at the age of 88. His daughter Debbie Young is also a painter residing in Hawaii.

John Melville Kelly American painter

John Melville Kelly (1879–1962) was an American painter and printmaker.

Keichi Kimura American painter

Keichi Kimura (1914–1988) was a painter and illustrator who was born in Waiʻanae, Hawaiʻi in 1914. He received his first art instruction from teacher Shirley Russell while attending President William McKinley High School in Honolulu. In 1936, he earned a B.A. from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where he studied under Henry H. Rempel and Huc-Mazelet Luquiens, and also met fellow art student and future wife, Sueko Matsueda. Keichi continued his education at Chouinard Art Institute, Columbia University and the Brooklyn Museum Art School. He first exhibited at the Honolulu Museum of Art at 19 years of age. During the Second World War, he served with the 100th Battalion of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in Italy and France, where he produced many drawings that were also exhibited at the Honolulu Museum of Art. He was divorced from Sueko in 1962 and died in Honolulu in 1988.

Isami Doi American painter

Isami Doi was an American printmaker and painter.

Hon Chew Hee American painter

Hon Chew Hee was an American muralist, watercolorist and printmaker who was born in Kahului, on the Hawaiian island of Maui in 1906. He grew up in China, where he received his early training in Chinese brush painting. He returned to the United States in 1920 at age 14 in order to further his training at the San Francisco Art Institute, receiving that school's highest academic honor. He then taught in China until moving to Hawaii in 1935. In Hawaii, he worked as a freelance artist and held classes in both Western and Eastern styles of painting. Together with Isami Doi (1903–1965), Hee taught painting classes at the YMCA. At this time, Doi instructed the young artist in woodcarving techniques and Hee, like his master, created wood engravings drawn from the rural life in the Islands. Hee also founded the Hawaii Watercolor and Serigraph Society.

Shirley Russell (artist) American painter

Shirley Ximena Hopper Russell, also known as Shirley Marie Russell, was an American artist best known for her paintings of Hawaii and her still lifes of Hawaiian flowers. She was born Shirley Ximena Hopper in Del Rey, California, in 1886. She graduated in 1907 from Stanford University, where she discovered art. Shirley married Lawrence Russell, an engineer, in 1909. When he died in 1912, she began teaching in Palo Alto, and dabbling in painting. In 1921, she and her son came to Hawaii for a visit and decided to stay. She studied under Hawaiian artist Lionel Walden during the 1920s and traveling to Europe several times to further her art education. She studied in Paris during the 1930s and the cubist influence can be seen in a number of her works. She taught art at President William McKinley High School in Honolulu for more than 20 years. Around 1935-1936, the Japanese publisher Watanabe Shozaburo (1885–1962) published more than several woodblock prints she designed. The majority of these prints depict colorful and detailed tropical flowers, while at least one print, Carmel Mission, is a California landscape.

Tadashi Sato American painter

Tadashi Sato was an American artist. He was born in Kaupakalua on the Hawaiian island of Maui. His father had been a pineapple laborer, merchant, and calligrapher, and Tadashi's grandfather was a sumi-e artist.

Satoru Abe Japanese American sculptor and painter (born 1926)

Satoru Abe is a Japanese American sculptor and painter.

Ben Norris (artist) American painter

Ben Norris (1910–2006) was an American modernist painter.

Reuben Tam American painter

Reuben Tam was an American landscape painter, educator, poet and graphic artist.

Sueko Matsueda Kimura American painter

Sueko Matsueda Kimura was an American artist. She was born in Papaikou, Hawaii in 1912. She received her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Fine Arts degrees from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where she met fellow art student Keichi Kimura, whom she married in 1942. She also attended the Chouinard Art Institute, Columbia University, the Brooklyn Museum Art School, and with Yasuo Kuniyoshi at the Art Students League of New York. She taught at the University of Hawaii at Manoa from 1952 until her retirement as Professor of Art in 1977.

Mamoru Sato American artist

Mamoru Sato is an American modernist sculptor. He was born in El Paso, Texas in 1937. He initially majored in aeronautical engineering but switched to art, receiving a BA in fine art in 1963 and an MFA in sculpture in 1965, both from the University of Colorado. He taught at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1965. During the summer of 1969, he worked with Tony Smith at UH. Smith titled a piece in his For... series for Sato: For M.S.

John Ingvard Kjargaard Danish-American painter, printmaker and collage artist

John Ingvard Kjargaard was a Danish-American painter, printmaker and collage artist.

Tetsuo Ochikubo (1923–1975), also known as Bob Ochikubo, was a Japanese-American painter, sculpture, and printmaker who was born in Waipahu, Hawaii, Honolulu county, Hawaii. During the Second World War, he served with the 100th Battalion of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. After being discharged from the Army, he studied painting and design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and at the Art Students League of New York. In 1953, he spent a year in Japan, studying traditional brush painting and connecting with his ancestry. He worked at Tamarind Institute in the 1960s and is best known for his entirely abstract paintings and lithographs. Along with Satoru Abe, Bumpei Akaji, Edmund Chung, Jerry T. Okimoto, James Park, and Tadashi Sato, Ochikubo was a member of the Metcalf Chateau, a group of seven Asian-American artists with ties to Honolulu. Ochikubo died in Kawaihae, Hawaii in 1975.

David Kuraoka is an American ceramic artist. He was born in Lihue, Hawaii, grew up on the island of Kauai, Hawaii in Hanamaulu and Lihue, and graduated from Kauai High School in 1964. Kuraoka spent his formative years in Hanamaulu where he lived with his parents in his paternal grandmother's home in a plantation labor camp. His father, one of seven children and the only son, became a journalist, writing a weekly column published on Wednesdays, and the Kauai campaign manager for local politician Hiram Fong and Richard Nixon. His mother, Emiko Kuraoka, was a school teacher. He is married to Carol Kuraoka. Kuraoka moved to California in 1964 to study architecture at San Jose City College, eventually transferring to San José State University where he received his BA in 1970 and MA 1971. After completing graduate work that focused on ceramics, Kuraoka joined the faculty at San Francisco State University, eventually rising to head its ceramics department.

John Paul Thomas American painter

John Paul Thomas was an American artist specializing in oil painting, watercolor and drawing in several media. He was also an educator and arts scholar.

Harry Tsuchidana American painter

Harry Suyemi Tsuchidana is an American abstract painter. He was born in Waipahu, Hawaii to parents who owned a two-acre farm. Tsuchidana enlisted in the United States Marine Corps upon graduation from high school in 1952. When discharged from the Marines in 1955, he enrolled in the Corcoran School of Art. He then moved to New York City, where he studied at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, and at the Pratt Contemporary Graphic Arts Center in New York City. While enrolled in classes, he worked as a guard and custodian at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and as a night watchman at the Museum of Modern Art. In 1959, he received a John Hay Whitney Fellowship.

References