Background

George Miyasaki was born on March 24, 1935, in Kalopa, Hawaii, United States. In 1953, he moved to California.

Education

George began drawing at an early age, copying cartoons out of magazines. His family supported his interest in art, as did his high school art instructor, who encouraged him to enroll at California College of the Arts.

Initially, George intended to major in commercial art. However, in subsequent years, his friendships with Billy Al Bengston and Manuel Neri helped to steer Miyasaki toward fine art, as did the development of close relationships with instructors Nathan Oliviera and Richard Diebenkorn.

In 1957, Miyasaki got a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, as well as a Bachelor of Arts degree in Education from California College of the Arts. The following year, in 1958, he got a Master of Fine Arts degree from the same educational establishment.

Career

Between 1958 and 1964, George held a post of an assistant professor at California College of Arts and Crafts (present-day California College of the Arts) in Oakland. In 1963, he was a visiting lecturer at Stanford University. The same year, George received John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and traveled to Europe, and it was during that time, that he worked at Atelier 17 in Paris.

Later, during the period from 1964 till 1965, Miyasaki served as a lecturer at the Department of Art Practice, University of California, Berkeley. In 1965, he was appointed an assistant professor at the same university, a post he held till 1985, when he was promoted to the post of a professor. In 1994, George was made a Professor Emeritus. While at Berkeley, he also designed and developed a world-class printmaking studio, still in use today.

As for his artistic career, George worked in an abstract expressionist manner in the early and mid-1950's. By the late-1950's, his paintings and lithographs were beginning to find an audience and gain critical attention. In spite of this early success, Miyasaki abandoned the expressionist approach during the mid-1960's in favor of more systematic investigations of color and form. The rigorous geometry characteristic of his works of that period subsequently softened and by 1978, Miyasaki was freely combining collage elements with hard-edge shapes and spontaneous, expressionistic paint application.

In his mature works, Miyasaki engaged the viewer in almost meditative contemplation, as he challenged the eye to survey the depths of his paintings' highly nuanced surfaces and subtle printmaking.

During his career, he took part in numerous solo and group exhibitions, held at various museums, galleries and art centers, including Richmond Art Center (1961), Washington Gallery of Modern Art (1966), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1967), Portland Art Museum (1983), Mary Ryan Gallery, New York City (1993), 455 Market Lobby Gallery, San Francisco (2010) and many others. Also, George appeared in multiple international Bienniale exhibitions.

Miyasaki continued to paint through the last years of his life, making prints through 2011 and then painting in his home studio until his passing in 2013.

Achievements

• While an accomplished painter, it was Miyasaki's pioneering work in the field of printmaking, that earned him a place in art history. The prodigious mastery of color and form in his paintings and prints immediately set him apart from the generation of artists, contending with the legacy of Abstract Expressionism in the late 1950's.
  
  During his career, he received several awards, grants and fellowships, including William Gerstle Memorial Prize for Painting, Agnes Lewis Memorial Purchase Prize, National Endowment for the Arts grant, John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, John S. Turner Memorial Purchase Award, Purchase Prize and others.
  
  His works are kept in private and public collections of different museums, institutes and organizations, including the Bank of America, San Francisco; United States Venture Partners, Menlo Park; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City; San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; British Museum, London, and many others.

Works

More photos

• lithography

  • Passage

  • Serenity

  • Composition 25

  • Creation

  • February

  • Stormy

  • Blue Serene

  • Autumn

  • Twilight

  • The Sky and the Sea

  • Flight Into September

• painting

  • Red 48

  • Inner Eye

  • Summer Field

Membership

• 

  member

  National Academy of Design , United States

  1993

Personality

Miyasaki lived to paint. It is clear, that this passion was informed by a wholehearted love of beauty and aesthetic perfectionism, as evidenced by the painter’s other interests. Also, he was an avid "bottle digger" – a seeker and collector of buried antique bottles.

The artist was also a brilliant gardener and a talented cook: a regular at Berkeley’s storied Tokyo Fish Market, he was passionate about preparing the finest ingredients and sharing them with his friends and children.

Quotes from others about the person

• "A major artist in the abstract expressionist movement in the San Francisco Bay Area." — John A. Helgeson

Connections

George was married several times and had a daughter, Julie Miyasaki, and two sons, Farrell Miyasaki and Michael Miyasaki.

child:

Julie Miyasaki

child:

Farrell Miyasaki

child:

Michael Miyasaki

Friend:

Billy Al Bengston

Friend:

Manuel Neri

mentor:

Nathan Oliviera

mentor:

Richard Diebenkorn

References

• George Miyasaki: the Early Prints
  1992
• George Miyasaki An exhibition catalog with introduction, photographs, biography, list of other exhibitions and public collections.
  1981