Key Hiraga

Kei Hiraga (1936-2000) The psychedelic and atomic painter of Human Comedy, a dionysiac worshiper' Key Hiraga was born in Tokyo in 1936, raised by his aunt in Morioka, where she had a restaurant with Geishas customers that might have been a source of inspiration for his art as well as Nô theatre. He graduated from Tokyo University in 1958 in Economical Sciences, but decided to follow the art path since he belonged to the International Spirit of Nonconformist 'Litterati' painters, Hiraga, Cormery, Zhu Xinjian, not influenced by moral hypocritical principles, but only preoccupied by mastering the art of painting and enjoying life and sexual ecstasy. After the chaos of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima, they only believed in Buraiha 無頼派, the Nihilists 'school of irresponsibility and decadence' of Post-War WWII, also called the 'decadents' of Japan. Their modus vivendi provoked established society with drunkeness, drugs, hectic free sex lives. Hiraga and Cormery belonged to that world, new heroes, rejecting social compromises, until suicide, another heroic choice. Their model the writer Hidemitsu Tanaka, committed suicide in front of Dazai's grave, his mentor who killed himself. Buraiha rejected pre-War literary and pictural traditions as well as American values under Post-War occupation. But their art was also 'psychedelic' the word invented in 1956 by Osmond, psychiatrist and Aldous Huxley, for LSD, another devastating bomb on brains and souls.

In 1964 Hiraga was awarded the 'New Artist Prize' at the National Exhibition in Tokyo Metropolitan Museum with a scholarship granted to study in Paris. Thanks to the curator William Lieberman, Hiraga enters the MOMA's collection, exhibits in 'New Japanese Painting and Sculpture' in the Modern Art Museum of New York touring to San Francisco, Denver, Illinois, Omaha, Columbus, Baltimore, Milwaukee Museums between 1965 and 1967. Hiraga while mastering the ancestral Japanese techniques, the art of tattooing on GI's flesh in a Tattoo parlor, and oil painting, added a Theatre Nô inspiration and psychedelic spirit to his canvases and unveiled with humor the Human Comedy, with our sexual dreams and obsessions. When he settles in Paris, he is not a French hypocritical 'Tartuffe' and for him the contrast is abyssal between Japan stuck into Middle Age mentality and fatally struck by the Hiroshima atomic bomb and Paris 1968 Revolution and Sex Liberation. Indeed, the 'Trente Glorieuses' 30 years Post-War boom are bursting, and Literrati Hiraga (1936-2000) like Cormery (1950-1999) are ahead of their time, 21st Century spirits, ill at ease in their 20th century, for them sex is not shameful, far away from a puritan spirit, they love to love, they love to paint vivid colors on paper or canvas, their world is today's trendy 'Porno Chic', yesteryear condemned as decadent. In Asakusa, famous for prostitution and hunters of sensual pleasures in old Japan, Hiraga designed drawings in a Tattoo Parlor for American occupational soldiers, and this district was quite similar to Paris, Pigalle where Hiraga settled, like many artists, since rents were cheap. 

Hiraga famous 1967 oil on canvas painted in Paris, 'The elegant life of Mr. H in Paris bistro', belongs to his cult series of paintings, The elegant life of Mr. H, is depicting Mr H, Mr Hiraga himself. Like in his 'Windows' we become observers with different views on the canvas. A group of four are conversing around a table. Above the table, the left character opens his eyes in a psychedelic manner, as if high under drugs, all four characters are vibrating, consumed with passion, with hanging red tongues. At first sight, one can see on the table, two green drinking glasses, but in fact they are a pair of breasts with excited, strained nipples for the four thirsty ones, while under the table, we discover three turgescent phallic members, with a blue, a red, a yellow drop according to each one. On the right the character might be a woman. In 1967 Hiraga was still importing a 'foundation white', like in theatre Nô, for his oil paintings on canvas to create delicate reliefs, but in the 1970's, when his Japanese oil paint producer filed for bankruptcy, he was obliged to use acrylic. 

In 1970 Hiraga shows it in the famous 'Erotissimorama' exhibition, at Galerie Jacques Casanova in Palais Royal, Paris, where Parisians keep exchanging their invitations, in 1971 in Rotterdam, Amsterdam Haarlem in Holland, during the Paris Art Olympiads in 1991-1992. Nevertheless, Hiraga remained pride of the Art of Japanese erotic nude tradition even for the pleasure of transgression, while phony France was still hiding behind a curtain the 'Origine du Monde', by Courbet, saved from the Nazis and that my friend Pierre Granville sold to Lacan, until Orsay Museum unveiled and institutionalized it. But, representative of the 'New Literati Painting' movement Hiraga, like Zhu Xinjian and Cormery, was never influenced by moral hypocritical principles, they mastered the art of  painting but used and transformed vivid, strong colors, thus white or pink become green, head up or down, stripping the pretense of painting academic subjects and traditions and enlivening the Art school with a playful, emotional and sensual approach. Litterati are painters as well as poets, painting free Love and free bodies, painting truth, while Cormery bodies within nature are alive on canvas or paper, vibrating, pure, far away from our static academic painting of nudes, Zhu Xinjian is playing on the tradition reversal with his Tea erotic ceremony, Hiraga is as well making fun of the human comedy of life. Litterati are sharing Love, creating their own hedonistic world enhanced towards happy and desire consumption, painting the sincere sexual communion with nature, flesh and life. Before his death, Hiraga enjoyed the opening of the Hiraga Museum established in Hakone Yumoto, near Tokyo.''Lise Cormery Ecole de Paris d'Après-Guerre, 2021, Michelangelo Paris. Collections Musées - Museum Collections 1966 M.O.M.A, Modern Art Museum of New York Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, Hollande Key HIRAGA Museum, Hakone Yumote, Japon Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Pompidou Beaubourg Museum, Paris National Museum of Art Osaka National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art Kyoto Japon Lunds Konsthall, Lund, Sweden Solo Shows Expositions personnelles 1966 Figuration Narrative Galerie Creuze Paris Travers Gallery, Edinburgh 1967 Galerie Lambert, Paris 1969 'The elegant life of Kei Hiraga', Gallery Seventh, Tokyo Japon 1970 Erotissimorama, Galerie Jacques Casanova, Paris Gallery Seven, Tokyo Rotterdam 1971 Galerie T, Haarlem, Galerie Jullmar, Amsterdam, Hollande 1972 La elegante vita di mister K Galleria del Naviglio, Milan 2008, The Elegant Life of Key Hiraga, Mayor Gallery, Londres Group Shows Expositions collectives 1957 First Asian Young Artists Exhibition Japon 1960 Sculptures Peintures japonaises, M.O.M.A, New York 1964 National Exhibition Tokyo Metropolitan Museum, Lauréat New Artist Price 1965, Biennale de Paris Galerie Lambert, Paris Galerie Argos, Nantes 1966 Figuration Narrativ, Gassiot-Talabot 1967 Groupe ORA, Galerie Jacqueline Ranson, Paris 1969 10e Biennale Sao Paulo Brazil 1971 Peintre Japonais résidant en Europe, Bruxelles- 2010 Japanese Artists from Europe National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto Museum of Modern Art, Paris 1981, 'A turning point of contemporary art in the 1960's' National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo 1985, Japan Contemporary Art Exhibition, National Museum of Modern Art, New Delhi, India 1989 Art Exciting '89" Museum of Modern Art Saitama, Japan Queensland Art Gallery Australia 1991 'Japanese Anti Art Now and Then', National Museum of Art, Osaka Japon 1991 1992 Olympiades des Arts de Paris La Galerie Lise Cormery l'organise pour le CNOSF Comité National Olympique et Sportif Français sous l'égide du Président Mitterrand et du Maire de Paris Chirac. Hiraga représente le Japon avec 'The Elegant Life of Mr H in Paris', 1967. Hiraga belonged to the delegation of Japan with 'The Elegant Life of Mr H in Paris', 1967 exhibited during the Paris Art Olympiads under the High Patronage of President Mitterrand and Chirac, Mayor of Paris. It was organized by Lise Cormery Gallery for the CNOSF, French Olympic Committee. Bibliographie Groupe ORA, Gassiot Talabot, Galerie Ranson, 1967, Art International vol. 13, n°10 Décembre 1969, Dictionnaire peintres, Jacques Busse, Ed Gründ, 1999, L'Art international de l'Ecole de Paris d'Après-Guerre. Extrait de 'Key Hiraga and Asian Post War Ecole de Paris, Lise Cormery, 2021, Michelangelo Publications, Paris.