Photo: Glickphoebe, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped). Saito in 1990. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kikuo_Saito.jpg

Kikuo Saito

Kikuo Saito (1939–2016) came from Tokyo to New York in 1966 and lived two artistic lives at once: assistant to Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler, and Larry Poons while becoming a color-field painter in his own right — later canvases scattered with stenciled letters — and a maker of wordless "poetic theater" at La MaMa, collaborating with Robert Wilson, Peter Brook, and Jerome Robbins. He taught at the Art Students League until his death; MoMA and the Whitney hold his work. Mostly he worked huge — big, expressive paintings — but he made a number of prints too, and as far as I can tell he "painted" the silkscreens in his own style rather than translating a design into flat printed layers. His widow, Mikiko Ino, founded KinoSaito (https://www.kinosaito.org/) in Verplanck, a few minutes from where I live: an art center that encourages creative expression in his spirit, and one of the best things near me. Several works in this collection were found there, which makes owning a Saito feel like closing a local loop.

Artist's website (kinosaito.org) ↗

1 physical work