Tsugio Hattori
(1951 - 1998)
Tsugio Hattori, internationally renowned artist and educator, died suddenly in his sleep on August 10, 1998. He was 46 years old.
Tsugio Hattori was born in Kagoshima, Japan in 1951. He attended the National-Kagoshima Technical College in 1972, graduating with degrees in mechanical engineering and technical illustration. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Musashino Art University, Tokyo, in 1980.
Concentrating on what would become a distinctive poetic style, Mr. Hattori continued his studies in the United States at the Art Students League in New York in 1981. In an autonomous style of lyrical expression, Hattori painted intuitive memories of his cultural past. Instinctually drawing from his Asian heritage, his influences ranged from the writings of the 13th-Century Zen Master, Dogen, to the contemporary New York painters Motherwell, Rothko, and Frankenthaler. Hattori's paintings achieve a delicate balance between calligraphic movement and painterly abstraction and subsequently evoke an East/West harmony.
He began a fourteen year relationship with Reece Galleries Inc., New York, NY, in 1984. In 1987 he immigrated to the United States. His paintings are in the collections of Bergen Museum of Art & Science, NJ, Muscarelle Museum of Art, VA, and Museo de Arte Contemporanea, Madeira, Portugal, to name a few, and have appeared in television programs on ABC and Fox. A number of his images were selected by UNICEF for publication in Europe in 1995 and 1997. In 1997, The Bergen Museum held the first retrospective of his inspirational work.
At the time of his death Mr. Hattori resided in Tappan, NY, and was a dedicated faculty member at the Art Center of Northern New Jersey, teaching abstract painting and composition.
He is survived by his wife, Yukiko, and their two sons.