Isamu kenmochi biography for kids
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The Japanese Pavilion that he designed in collaboration with the architect Kunio Maekawa (1905-1986) for the Brussels World Fair in 1958 is a perfect example. Figures such as Isamu Kenmochi, Junzo Sakakura, Daisaku Choh, Riki Watanabe, Ubunji Kidokoro, and Katsuo Matsumura reimagined domestic life through objects that reflected both modern sensibilities and enduring Japanese values.
He was particularly interested in the seasons and often depicted them in his works. Design+Encyclopedia is a free encyclopedia, written collaboratively by designers, creators, artists, innovators and architects. He thus shaped a two-faced Japanese modern design where a reasonable production coexists in harmony with traditional crafts.
Public and private spaces : a career devoted to Japanese design
He graduated from the Industrial Arts Institute (IAI) in Tokyo in 1932 and continued his studies at the Sendai one.
His most famous series of sculptures, The Seven Shepherds of the Seasons, created between 1929 and 1933, features seven figures representing the changing seasons. He adapted foreign manufacturing methods and took advantage of technologies advances that he had observed during his international trips.
Isamu Kenmochi
Isamu Kenmochi was a prominent Japanese artist who made significant contributions to the fields of painting, photography, and sculpture.
Isamu Kenmochi took part of the reconstruction, both theoretically and materially : he worked on the government’s policy of standardisation and promoted the development of furniture as a fully-fledged industrial sector. Isamu Kenmochi wrote his reference book “Japanese Modern” in which he underlines the essence of Japanese design : he defends “the perfect matches” of “machine and hand, human and nature, reason and emotion, contradictory things that until now had never harmonized”.
The trips of Bruno Taut (1880-1938), Charlotte Perriand (1903-1999) and Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) in Japan deeply influenced the work of Isamu Kenmochi.
Each sculpture is made of bronze and stands over six feet tall, with intricate details that reflect Kenmochi's mastery of the medium. He embraced the new American industrial considerations to adapt them to Japanese features.
He developed a Japanese “Good Design” upon his return, based on Edgar J. Kaufmann (1885-1955) model – one the designer he had met during his trip.
The rapid economic growth of the 1960s—often called the Japanese Economic Miracle—brought modernization, urbanization, and a new middle class eager to embrace contemporary ways of living. His legacy continues to inspire artists in Japan and around the world, and his works can be found in museums and galleries worldwide.
Isamu Kenmochi, Japanese artist, painting, photography, sculpture, Zen Buddhism, seasons, bronze, landscapes, calligraphy
— David Clark
Isamu Kenmochi
Isamu Kenmochi was a Japanese painter, photographer and sculptor who worked mainly in the mid-20th century.
In 1956, he opened his own shop, Living Art, where he offered his own creations and those of other designers, sharing Modernity in their DNA. Niimi Ryu, a professor at the Musashino University of Art, “sees Kenmochi Isamu as the most important personality we could have for thinking about Japanese Modernity”: he combines natural materials and Japanese craft techniques with modern forms and mass production.
Born in Kofu, Yamanashi in 1898, Kenmochi studied at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts from 1918 to 1922, where he developed his unique style that combined traditional Japanese painting techniques with elements of Zen Buddhism. If post-war Japan was under the American Way of Life influence, Isamu Kenmochi was surprised to find American design was heavily influenced by Japanese and Scandinavian ones.
His favorite playground remains space and how optimize it. He militated for designers and interior architects to be recognized as important as architects.
Isamu Kenmochi is famous for his large-scale projects such as the Kyoto International Convention Center or the Boeing 747s design interiors of Japan Airlines. He also met some of the greatest designers of his time: Charles (1907-1978) and Ray (1912-1988) Eames, Marcel Breuer (1902-1981), Eero Saarinen (1910-1961), Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969).
He is best known for his series of sculptures, The Seven Shepherds of the Seasons, which he created between 1929 and 1933.