Akino Fuku (1908-2001) was a female painter born in Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture. She started submitting portrait paintings in several government sponsored exhibitions from 1930, and in 1948 she participated in the establishment of an artists group, Sōzō Bijutsu (present-day Sōgakai; The Soga-kai Association of Japanese Painting), which pursues innovation of nihonga (Japanese painting). In 1962, Akino was invited as a visiting professor of Japanese painting at the present Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan, West Bengal. She visited India 14 times in her life since then and painted her impressions and experiences she had there; those works were presented in the exhibitions of Sōgakai as her own and were highly appreciated. Akino’s creations capture the intense sunlight and heat of India, depict the drastically changing state of a river in rainy season, and describe the powerful lifestyles of people. While supported by a firm foundation of traditional mineral pigment painting techniques, Akino’s work possesses a strong attraction which is derived from its modern and novel composition.
Her remarkable achievement as a painter resulted in several awards and recognitions including the Mainichi Art Award (1986), Nihon Geijutsu Taishō (Japan Art Grand Prix, 1993) and the Order of Culture (1999). After World War II, she also produced works for picture books energetically.
This exhibition is the first memorial exhibition in Kanagawa Prefecture since the one which took place in the Museum of Modern Art, Hayama in 2008, and introduces Akino’s spontaneous and noble creations with 50 works including major works of India theme.