Yoshiteru Otani (大谷 芳照, Ōtani Yoshiteru; born 1958) is a Japanese artist best known for his Peanuts-inspired work.…Yoshiteru Otani (大谷 芳照, Ōtani Yoshiteru; born 1958) is a Japanese artist best known for his Peanuts-inspired work. Otani is the creator of much of the artwork found in the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center. An exhibit of Otani's Peanuts-themed charcoal ink paintings, Peanuts: Found in Translation, was presented at the Schulz Museum from November 12, 2004, to April 11, 2005.
Nishida Shun'ei (西田 俊英; born April 20, 1953, in Ise city, Mie prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese Nihonga painter who…Nishida Shun'ei (西田 俊英; born April 20, 1953, in Ise city, Mie prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese Nihonga painter who specializes in portraits, and later fantastical landscapes, and is an emeritus professor of Japanese painting at Hiroshima City University and Musashino Art University, which he retired from in 2024. He received the 2016 Japan Art Academy award for Japanese painting. As of 2026, he is the chair of the Japan Art Institute.
Leiko Ikemura (イケムラレイコ, Ikemura Reiko; born 22 August 1951 in Tsu, Mie Prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese-Swiss artist…Leiko Ikemura (イケムラレイコ, Ikemura Reiko; born 22 August 1951 in Tsu, Mie Prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese-Swiss artist who works in a variety of mediums, including oil painting, sculpture, and watercolor. She divides her time between Cologne and Berlin, teaching painting at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin. Active on the international art scene since the 1970s, she is known for her work within the Neo-Expressionism movement of the 1980s, as well as her continually evolving style. Much of her oeuvre features elements of symbolism, involving the creation of magical universes blend elements of her animals, humans, and plants. Her work has been featured in a number of solo exhibitions in Japan and Europe, and is held in the permanent collections of major institutions such at the Centre Pompidou, Kunstmuseum Basel, Kunstmuseum Bern, Kunsthaus Zurich, and the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. In 2023, she had her first solo exhibition in Mexico at the Museo de Arte de Zapopan.
Sadamasa Motonaga (元永定正, Motonaga Sadamasa, born November, 26, 1922, in Iga Ueno, died October 3, 2011, in Takarazuka)…Sadamasa Motonaga (元永定正, Motonaga Sadamasa, born November, 26, 1922, in Iga Ueno, died October 3, 2011, in Takarazuka) was a Japanese visual artist and book illustrator, and a first-generation member of the postwar Japanese artist group Gutai Art Association, Gutai for short. Motonaga’s oeuvre, comprising paintings, objects, performances and stage art, ceramics, murals and installation artworks and picture books, is characterized by his humorous, enlivening (animating) use of biomorphic abstract shapes inspired by nature and manga cartoons, as well as the exploration of the materiality of color. He is most known for his ephemeral works from Gutai’s experimental exhibition projects, such as Liquid: Red and Works (Water) from 1955 and 1956, which used vinyl sheets and tubes filled with color-tinted water; his stage works from 1957 and 1958, which involved smoke as artistic material; and for his Informel-style paintings from the late 1950s that experimented with pouring liquid paint on to canvases. Promoted by the French art critic Michel Tapié, who during the 1950s and 1960s attempted to establish Informel as a global movement, Motonaga became one of the few Gutai members who received international and national recognition as a solo artist beyond the Gutai context. He was offered a yearlong residency by the Japan Society in New York in 1966, during which he introduced airbrushing and a hard-edge style to his paintings. After leaving Gutai in 1971, Motonaga’s work again expanded beyond painting to ceramics, interior design, murals, and public performances and installation artworks, all of which he continuously developed around his signature-style of animated biomorphic shapes. The children's picture books, which Motonaga created in collaboration with the poet and translator Shuntarō Tanikawa beginning in 1970, became bestselling books. He was married to graphic designer Etsuko Nakatsuji, with whom he also collaborated on reconstruction projects in the aftermath of the Great Hanshin earthquake in 1995.
