Saeki Yuzo · 1898–1928
Saeki Yuzo
A Western-style painter born in Osaka who painted Paris street corners in rough brushwork. He studied under Fujishima Takeji at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts and died in 1928 at age 30 after two stays in Paris.
Saeki Yuzo was born in 1898 as the second son of a temple family in Osaka. He studied under Fujishima Takeji at the Kawabata Painting School in Tokyo and then in the Western painting department of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, graduating in 1923.
From 1924 he spent about two years on his first stay in Paris. He is said to have been deeply shaken after showing his work to the Fauvist painter Vlaminck, and his style began to change from this time. He painted many Paris street scenes, and one of his hallmarks is the way he took the lettering of signs and posters on street corners into the composition.
He returned to Japan briefly in 1926 and went to Paris again in August 1927, but his chronic tuberculosis worsened and he died in August 1928 in a hospital outside Paris. He was active as a painter for less than six years. Many of his works are held by the Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka, and other institutions.
