IWATE MUSEUM OF ART

This exhibition celebrates the life and work of Fukuda Shigeo (1932-2009, b.Tokyo) who was the top of the master designers for decades. Fukuda spent his boyhood in his mother's hometown, Ninohe City, Iwate Prefecture and returned to Tokyo after the war to study design at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. He launched a career as a designer during several years from mid-1950's to 60's, which was the very time when the Japanese design made a great leap for the Tokyo Olympics and the Osaka Expo. He won the gold medal at the Warsaw International Poster Biennial in 1972 and gained a high reputation throughout the world for his minimal graphic expression filled with strong visual power. Taking advantage of human optical illusions, on the other hand, he created three-dimensional trick objects entertaining us with amazing visual wit and humor. This is the largest retrospective of the artist, including 210 posters from DNP Foundation for Cultural Promotion and 100 three-dimensional works from Ninohe City Civic Center, as well as his rarely-seen significant drawings.