“There was Sotatsu Tawaraya in the seventeenth century, Korin Ogata in the eighteenth century, Hoitsu Sakai in the nineteenth century, and Ikko Tanaka in the twentieth century. Tanaka is not Rimpa-like. He is the very person that embodies Rimpa.” This is how the art historian Yuji Yamashita comments on Tanaka.
Ikko Tanaka was born in Nara and spent four years of his impressionable youth in Kyoto (now Kyoto City University of Arts). He was amply inspired by traditional Japanese aesthetics, particularly the world of Rimpa, which had continuously been pursuing beauty in daily life. Identifying fine elements of design within its artistic beauty, Tanaka inherited the essence, assimilated it as part of himself, and demonstrated his rare talent as soon as he made his debut.
This exhibition is held in commemoration of the quadricentennial of Rimpa (400 years since Koetsu Honami established Koetsu-mura, a community in Takagamine in the northern part of Kyoto, in 1615). 123 works by Ikko Tanaka from the DNP Graphic Design Archives Collection have been carefully selected from the points of view of subjects, techniques, compositinos, colors and attitudes towards creativity identifiable in Rimpa works to trace the path that led to the birth of Ikko Tanaka as a twentieth century representative of Rimpa.
In addition, we will exhibit the motion graphics by Rhizomatiks analyzing 1600 plus posters by Ikko Tanaka.