Tikashi Fukushima

Tikashi Fukushima (Sōma, January 19, 1920 - São Paulo, October 14, 2001 ) was a Japanese-Brazilian painter and printmaker.

Considered one of the most important abstractionists in Brazil, Fukushima also produced several works in the field of figurativism throughout his career.

The artist has received various positive reviews from numerous important art critics for both his abstractionist and figurative productions.

Fukushima belongs to the pre-war immigrant generation, composed of common immigrants who, after several changes in their lives, awakened to the arts.

His master was Tadashi Kaminagai, whom Fukushima saw as a mentor, but who had a different style of painting than the one he later developed.

Tikashi's works have been presented in national and international exhibitions.

Fukushima participated in artistic groups, such as Seibi-kai and Grupo Guanabara, having contact with numerous painters, including many of Japanese origin.

The artist was honored with multiple titles and awards, and many of his works were acquired by important collectors in Brazil and other countries.

In addition, he was a member of the Arts Commission of the Brazil-Japan Fine Arts Foundation, president of the Arts Commission of the Brazilian Society of Japanese Culture, and president of the Japanese-Brazilian Art Museum.

Fukushima recognized Kaminagai as his master and spent hours listening to Kaminagai's stories of how he survived in Paris and exhibited his artwork in the salons of the 1930s.

The Seibi-kai at the time was being restructured since the entity had been founded in 1935 but shut down in World War II, as were schools and associations where immigrants gathered.

The sale of Fukushima's works, like those of many other artists, helped to raise funds to ensure the continuity of the salons of the Seibi-kai, which were held annually.

Fukushima's wife, Ai, was depicted in numerous drawings and paintings and accompanied the artist to meetings and trips.

Since Tikashi did not speak Portuguese well and Ai did, she played an important role by being a channel of communication for her husband with Brazilians.

According to his daughter, Elly, when Fukushima was not known as a painter, Ai was the one who supported the household by making clothes.

Based on reports from his uncle who had already been to Brazil, he decided to change countries on February 24, 1940, aboard the ship Brasil Maru.

Thus, he disembarked in the port of Santos and went to the countryside of the state of São Paulo, first to Pompeia and then to Lins, where he met Manabu Mabe.

Mabe was four years younger than Tikashi, and both were determined to be painters; Mabe worked in the fields and painted when it rained.

Tikashi began working in a warehouse and in his free time devoted himself to drawing, making copies from photographs, and this activity provided him with an extra income.

At this time, he had contact with several artists, such as Milton Dacosta, Inimá de Paula, Quirino Campofiorito, Van Rogger, and Di Cavalcanti, and began to attend the National School of Fine Arts in 1942, where he audited courses.

Tikashi began to improve his techniques of "dessin", which consists of drawing the lines and outlines of objects and human figures, making several nude studies.

In 1945, living in São Paulo and working in a workshop, he was introduced by his boss to a well-known painter, Tadashi Kaminagai, who at that time needed an assistant in a frame workshop in Rio de Janeiro.

Thus, Fukushima agreed to work for Kaminagai and in 1946 he moved to Santa Teresa, Rio de Janeiro.

They would also go fishing together and take hours to reach a place they considered special, and this place enchanted Fukushima and inspired him to make his first painting in 1946, which was entitled Paisagem ("Landscape").

As he did not have money to afford the canvas used by other artists - he could not even afford two meals a day - he improvised a canvas using a par of cotton pants.

He painted the picture in red, yellow, blue, white, and black, using his fingers, and the outlines were made with the only brush he had, having finished the work in the size of 10x14 inches (27x 35.5 cm).

Before the first painting made by the artist in 1946, Tikashi made drawings using graphite on paper.

According to his son, Takashi, "When he arrived in Brazil, he had not yet carried out any artistic activities."

In 1947, he participated in the 52nd National Fine Arts Salon, and the following year he participated again, when he won an honorable mention and received a commentary by the artist, teacher, and critic Tomás Santa Rosa Júnior (from the newspaper A Manhã, in the Arts and Language supplement), where he stated: "Excellent artists are the Japanese without a doubt. If they do not amaze with their genius, they never disappoint. This 'Paisagem ' by Fukushima is a document of good taste, of the right composition, of good color, worked with appreciable artistic refinement."

In 1949, he returned to São Paulo, married Ai Saito, and set up a framing workshop in Largo Guanabara, located in the Paraíso neighborhood.

Later this place became the meeting point of the artists who, in 1950, formed the Guanabara Group (the Group of 15 had an offshoot that was called Grupo Guanabara, in which there was contact between artists and critics of the local environment).

The Guanabara Group was formed around Tikashi Fukushima and reached 34 members, among them artists participating in Seibi-kai and the Group of 15.

Tikashi Fukushima's painting in the 1950s was "deeply marked by gesture, rhythm, and spirituality."

In 1950, his son Takashi Fukushima was born and became a painter, engraver, draftsman, and set designer.

Takashi's first contact with the arts was passed on by Tikashi in his home.

Fukushima continued participating in the National Salon of Fine Arts until 1964.

In 1996, he gave a statement to journalist Kuniko Kobayashi from the São Paulo-Shimbun newspaper, in which he said: "That moment was sublimation. And it consolidated my trajectory as an artist."

He also received the decoration called the Order of the Sacred Treasure, in 1997.

In his youth, Fukushima worked on a farm and in a warehouse.

He finished high school and moved to Yokohama, near Tokyo, where he was a draftsman in an airplane factory for two years.