The Estate of Teruko Yokoi is pleased to announce Hinageshi, an exhibition presented by Kent Fine Art in conjunction with Upstate Art Weekend.
Nature remained a constant source of inspiration throughout Yokoi's nearly eight-decade career. As a child outside Nagoya, she accompanied her father, a calligrapher and poet, on walks through the countryside. THey would gather impressions of the natural world that would later find expression in both poetry and painting. Yokoi often described her paintings as "poems written in colors."
Following her move to Switzerland in the early 1960s, memories of prewar Japan increasingly informed her work. While earlier paintings from New York and Paris were rooted in abstraction, she gradually developed a more personal approach that incorporated references to landscape, seasons, weather, flowers, and traditional Japanese poetic forms. Poppies, grasses, snow, clouds, and fragments of handwritten haiku became recurring motifs within compositions that balanced memory, observation, and imagination.
The exhibition takes its title from the Japanese word for poppy, a subject that occupied a special place in Yokoi's work. Following her passing, a commemorative celebration of the artist's life was held at Thun Castle in Switzerland featuring her beloved poppy motif, which she described as a symbol of freedom, individuality, and quiet beauty.
Presented by Kent Fine Art with the support of the Estate of Teruko Yokoi.