Chuta Kimura

Chuta Kimura (木村忠太, Kimura Chūta, 1917–1987), often known professionally as simply Kimura, was a Japanese artist known for his landscape paintings of France.

Biography

Kimura was born on February 25, 1917 in Takamatsu, Japan. He was a descendant of a local samurai. His father owned a real estate development company. From a young age, Kimura was interested in art and nature. He attended Takamatsu Kōgei Gakkō, a school of decorative arts, from age 13 to 15.

Between two stints in the military, Kimura's artistic output suffered during World War II as he faced illness, shortages of art materials, and a rigid, highly academic art culture fostered in Tokyo. Mary S. Cowen, Denys Sutton, and other Western critics of Kimura's work have also noted the influence of Japanese calligraphy and the coloring of ukiyo-e prints on Kimura's paintings. Kimura himself, as well as critic Arthur Danto, considered Kimura's art to be in the tradition of Claude Monet, sharing an interest in exploring light and the effects of light. Nemours (1966), National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan Golden Light in the Evening (1974), National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan Summer in the Pyrenees (1978), The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC Landscape: Glen (1980), National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan Garden at Clos-Saint-Pierre (1984), The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC