Acrylic, Canvas

Tadasky acrylic painting on canvas titled E-128 with hues of red, yellow, and black. The piece is signed, titled and dated 1969 on the back of the canvas.

Tadasky (Tadasuke Kuwayama) was born in Nagoya, Japan, 1935. He came to the United States on a scholarship to study at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI in 1961. Tadasky's first stop was New York where he decided to stay. Tadasky transferred his scholarship to the Art Students League and the Brooklyn Museum Art School in New York, then a locus of study for Japanese immigrants. Tadasky's primary body of work, begun in the early 1960s, features compositions of concentric circles that trigger optical color interaction and explore sensory stimulation. They are highly calculated and precisely created, consisting of thin, pulsating, vibrantly colored lines that seem to whirl and radiate outward from the center. Tadasky uses a special wheel adapted from a traditional Japanese technique that allows him to paint each ring perfectly. Philip Johnson was among Tadasky's earliest supporters, purchasing a painting in 1964 and introducing Tadasky's work to fellow architects and curators. A painting by Tadasky appeared in the December 11, 1964 edition of Life magazine in an article titled "Op Art: A dizzying fascinating style of painting." The Museum of Modern Art purchased the featured work, A-101, 1964, as well as B-171, 1964 for its permanent collection. Other early museum collectors were the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Albright-Knox Gallery (purchased 2 works), the Houston Museum of Fine Arts (purchased by James J. Sweeney), and the Phoenix Art Center. Private collectors include Harry Abrams, Seymour Knox, Frederick Weisman, David Rockefeller, and James Michener. Tadasky's first New York dealer was the prestigious Kootz Gallery which held solo exhibitions in 1964 and 1965. Tadasky also had solo exhibitions in Japan in 1966 at the Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo and at the Gutai Pinacotheca, Osaka. Tadasky then had two solo exhibitions at Fishbach Gallery in 1967 and 1969. Tadasky participated in seminal Op Art exhibitions including the Museum of Modern Art's The Responsive Eye and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery's Kinetic and Optic Art Today both in 1965. The following year, the Museum of Modern Art included Tadasky in its exhibition The New Japanese Painting and Sculpture which traveled to 7 other museums across the country. Tadasky's bright, multicolored compositions were an instant success with the public; in 1968, Springbok Editions manufactured a circular jigsaw titled "Whirling Disks by Tadasky." Tadasky's work was strongly featured in the Columbus Museum of Art exhibition The Optic Nerve: Perceptual Art of the 1960s with seven works illustrated in the exhibition catalogue. Tadasky's Sixties paintings were also included in Extreme Abstraction at the Albright-Knox Gallery in 2005. Tadasky was recently included in the exhibition Resounding Spirit: Japanese Contemporary Art of the 1960s organized by the Gibson Gallery at SUNY Potsdam which traveled to the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas.

H 47 in. x W 47 in. x D 1.5 in.