Photo/Illutration Gyoji Nomiyama in 2020 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Gyoji Nomiyama, an oil painter who led the postwar art world with his free, abstract style, died of heart failure in Fukuoka on June 22. He was 102.

A recipient of the Order of Culture, Nomiyama was also known for highlighting works left by art students who died in World War II.

He had been hospitalized since June 8.

“Nomiyama walked down the single path of painting through the turbulent postwar years and lived his life, as well as those of his fellow art students who died in the war, to the fullest,” said writer Seiichiro Kuboshima, director of the Mugonkan museum, which displays those art students’ paintings. “I respect him.”

Born in a coal-mining area in what is now the city of Iizuka in Fukuoka Prefecture, Nomiyama studied oil painting at the predecessor of the Tokyo University of the Arts.

He went to war in northeastern China in 1943 after graduating from the school early, but he was sent back to Japan due to illness before the war ended.

Nomiyama moved to France in 1952 and produced paintings in Paris and elsewhere until 1964.

He won the Yasui Award for up-and-coming figurative artists in 1958 and then went on to establish his own painting style where colors and shapes appear to melt together based on landscapes, among other themes.

In 1972, he became a professor at the Tokyo University of the Arts and trained many young painters.

He also gave an annual arts lecture at a junior high school attached to Kaho High School in Iizuka, the successor of his alma mater.

“Children sometimes produce paintings that take everyone by surprise, and I gain inspiration even at my age,” he once said. “I find many good paintings that I want to take home with me.”

Inspired by his wartime experiences, Nomiyama gathered works of art students killed in the war from their bereaved families and co-authored a collection of their paintings in 1977.

He also helped Kuboshima open the Mugonkan museum in Ueda, Nagano Prefecture. 

Nomiyama remained active until his later years, working at his home in Tokyo and at his seaside atelier in the city of Itoshima, Fukuoka Prefecture.

In summer, he went to the nearby sea to swim and dive.

“If we look at a painting every day, it becomes impossible to tell if it is good or bad,” Nomiyama said. “If we look at it again after breathing different air, however, it looks fresh. It is good going back and forth between Tokyo and Fukuoka.”

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