Reiji Kimura is a Japanese painter, printmaker, and sculptor born in Tokyo in 1926. His work belongs to the field of postwar abstraction, at the intersection of the Japanese and American art scenes. Working in mixed media with an abstract orientation, he has been active in the United States since his arrival in the mid-1950s.
He studied at Chiba University, graduating in 1948, and subsequently taught art and drawing in Tokyo during the first half of the 1950s. His first exhibition with the Jiyu Art Association took place in 1952, followed by his participation in the Nika Salon in 1953 and 1955.
In 1956, Kimura moved to New York, where he developed a mixed-media practice based on collage, oil, and metallic paint on canvas, paper, or wood. This material approach gave rise to works often characterized by silvery, grey, or earthy tones, in which the surface becomes a field of balance between relief, light, and density.
His American trajectory became more defined from the late 1950s onward, with solo exhibitions in Honolulu and later in Philadelphia, as well as participation in group exhibitions on the East Coast. A decisive moment in his recognition came with his participation in The New Japanese Painting and Sculpture, a landmark exhibition organized by the MoMA and presented between 1965 and 1967 in eight American institutions.
Kimura’s work today appears as that of an artist still under-documented, yet essential for understanding the exchanges between the Japanese avant-garde and the New York art scene of the 1950s and 1960s. His recent rediscovery is reflected both in the secondary market and in historical exhibitions devoted to abstraction, as well as in the renewed inclusion of his name within narratives of postwar Japanese art.
Reiji Kimura passed away in 2021 in the United States, in New Jersey, at the age of 95.