Takeshi Kawashima American-Japanese, b. 1930

Takeshi Kawashima is a painter, printmaker, and sculptor born in 1930 in Takamatsu, Kagawa, Japan. He attended the School of Fine Art in Musashino, Tokyo, from 1953 to 1955. After graduating, that year, Kawashima started teaching at Yoyogi Art School in the same city until 1958. Then, he began exhibiting his work, and the first exhibition was at the Muramatsu Gallery in Tokyo, where he held a solo exhibition yearly until 1961. Then, he began exhibiting with Yomiuri Independents in Tokyo until 1963.

1963 proved a pivotal year for the artist's life and career. He was commissioned to make a mural for the Agricultural Hall in Takamatsu, Kagawa. The same year he moved to New York, where he lived until 2016.

When Kawashima moved to the United States, he had already developed his career through exhibitions and commissions in Japan. He was also already recognized for his trademark abstract grid style. While in New York, his work attracted the attention of critics and curators, mostly his Red and Black series. Soon after, he was selected to participate in the groundbreaking exhibition The New Japanese Painting and Sculpture, a landmark show of forty-six Japanese artists. It was a traveling show presented at eight museums in the United States that started at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1965 and included the Modern Museum of Art (MoMA) in New York. The exhibition was curated by MoMA's curators Dorothy Miller and William Lieberman and was prepared in collaboration with the San Francisco Museum of Art. The show was a comprehensive presentation of modern Japanese art in the States. He participated in this exhibition with a large format painting from 1964 purchased by MoMA, entering the collection of one of the most prestigious museums in the world. After that, he exhibited at the museum in other relevant exhibitions such as The 1960s: Painting and Sculpture from the Museum Collection, in 1967; and Recent Acquisitions, 1968–1973, in 1973. Later the museum acquired three more pieces from him.

During those years, he received several scholarships and awards: the Daniel Schnakenberg scholarship in 1965, the Board of Control scholar in 1966, and the Silvermine award in 1967.

The sixties proved to be very active for the artist, and his work was sought after by museums and institutions in the United States. For example, in 1968, he participated in the exhibition The Art of Organic Forms at the Smithsonian American Art Museum; and in 1969, in Contemporary American Painting and Sculpture at the Krannert Art Museum, at the University of Illinois.

He also became part of the art scene in his new city and exhibited in the galleries circuit, among those the Waddell Gallery, one of the most prestigious of that period. He presented two solo exhibitions there, one in 1967 and another in 1969.

During the 1980s, he became interested in sculpture and produced metal and wood pieces.

In the 1990s, he held two exhibitions at galleries in New York: in 1995 at the Hannah-Kent Gallery; and in 1998 at the Walter Wickiser Gallery. The following year he had one at Yamaso Art Gallery in Kyoto, Japan. During this decade, he also participated in three editions of the Kshionoe International Young Artist Festival in 1993, 1995, and 1998.

The Kagawa Prefectural Culture Museum organized a retrospective exhibition of his work in 2002 to recognize his artistic trajectory. Meanwhile, in New York, he exhibited at Michell Algus Gallery in 2006 and participated in the Art Now Fair in 2008.

He has participated in the Setouchi Triennale since the first edition in 2010 at the Seto Island, which is still running.

In 2016 he decided to return to Japan and opened the Takeshi Kawashima Art Factory on Naoshima, known as "art island," where he currently works and exhibits.

His work can be found in several institutions, museums, and galleries in Japan and the United States. Among those, we can mention the Museum of Modern Art in Kyobashi, and the National Museum, in Tokyo, both in Japan. In the United States, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the Norton Simon Museum in California.