Shizuko Yoshikawa (1934-2019) - Untitled

Shizuko Yoshikawa (1934-2019): Untitled Construction

Medium: Silkscreen Print
Material: Cardboard
Dimensions: 16 x 16 cm
Editor: Edition FANAL, Basel
Year: 1993

Signature: handsigned and dated in pencil

Provenance:
Private Collection, Basel

Condition / Restauration:
great archival condition


Shizuko Yoshikawa (1934–2019)
Shizuko Yoshikawa was a Japanese-Swiss artist and a leading figure of the second generation of Constructive-Concrete art. Born in Ōmuta, Japan, in 1934, she initially studied English Language and Literature in Tokyo before shifting to architecture and product design, earning a Master's degree from Kyōiku University Kate Vass Studio. A decisive turning point came at the 1960 World Design Conference in Tokyo, where she worked as an interpreter and encountered the European avant-garde Nakka-art.
In 1961, Yoshikawa moved to Germany to study at the Ulm School of Design, co-founded by Max Bill to advance the Bauhaus legacy, where she was the first and only female Japanese student. She settled in Zurich, working alongside—and later marrying—the Swiss graphic design pioneer Josef Müller-Brockmann.
Through the Concrete Art galerie 58 (1965–1974), Yoshikawa engaged with Zurich's Concrete movement around Max Bill, Camille Graeser, Verena Loewensberg and Richard Paul Lohse, pursuing undogmatic trajectories within the so-called "cold art" of the post-war era Marlboroughgallerylondon. Her reliefs, Farbschatten works and luminous geometric paintings merged European rationalism with the contemplative sensibility of Japanese Zen traditions. Her work is held by institutions including MAMCO Geneva, Kunsthaus Zürich, Haus Konstruktiv, Museum für Konkrete Kunst Ingolstadt, and The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo