Toru Iwaya

is a Japanese mezzotint engraver and painter.

Biography

Born in Koriyama, Japan in 1936, the youngest child of Iwaya Kanekichi and Kageyama Matsu, Tōru Iwaya went, at the age of 19, to Tokyo. After he graduated from the Tokyo Fisheries (東京水産), now called Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology (東京海洋大学), at the age of 24, he moved back to Koriyama, where in 1965 at the age of 29 he married Keiko Sugano. He undertook his artistic studies at the Nippon Design School and at Fukushima University (福島大学, Fukushima daigaku). In 1971 at the age of 35 he moved to Paris. There he studied under Stanley William Hayter at his studio Atelier 17. In 1974 he exhibited some of his mezzotint works at the Galerie Genot in the Marais near his own workshop.

Tōru Iwaya went back to Koriyama in 1999 due to his wife's deteriorating health and his sister's mental illness. He continues his work and has begun teaching his techniques to young students at his workshop.

Awards Société des Artistes Français: bronze medal, 1972