Taro Yamamoto was part of the Abstract Expressionist movement in New York City during the 1950s. Taro Yamamoto belonged to the New York School Abstract Expressionist artists whose artistic innovation by the 1950s had been recognized across the Atlantic, including Paris.
Background
An American-Japanese non-objective painter, he was born in Hollywood, California on October 29, 1919, to a wealthy Japanese landlord and builder. At the age of six he was taken to live in Japan, where he remained until age 19. According to the painter himself, he started painting at the age of six, and won many prizes in exhibitions at his Japanese schools. At the age of 10 he was already painting landscapes and still lives in oil.
Education
Taro was sent to Japan at the age of eight to receive a traditional Japanese education. During his education he began painting and by the time he reached high school he decided to make art his life. He returned to the United States in 1936 and began studies in cubism at Los Angeles City College. After being discharged from the service he returned to California where he studied at the Santa Monica City College. In 1949 Glenn Wessel, a student of Hans Hofmann, convinced him to New York where he enrolled the the Art Students League in 1950. He also won a four-year scholarship to study at the Hans Hofmann school in New York.
Taro Yamamoto’s prolific career began at a young age. By the age of ten, he was already painting landscapes and still lifes in oil, and had won numerous prizes in exhibitions at school. In 1941 he joined the U.S. Army and served during World War II. After being discharged from the service he returned to California. In 1949 Glenn Wessel, a student of Hans Hofmann, convinced him to New York. There he worked with Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Vaclav Vytlacil, Byron Brown, Reginald Marsh, and Morris Kantor.
In 1952 he won a John Sloan Fellowship from the Art Students League. The next year he traveled to Europe under a Edward G. MacDowell Traveling Fellowship where he practices in Stuttgard, Germany with Willy Baumeister. He also exhibited at Gallerie Huit in Paris. In 1954 Yamamoto was invited to a residency at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. There he worked with Stuart Davis, Milton Avery, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko developing a unique abstract expressionist style. Later in his life he devoted himself to hard-edge painting.
Yamamoto had an extensive exhibition career including the Stable Gallery, Art Students League, Krasner Gallery, Westerly Gallery and Riverside Museum in New York; the Provincetown Art Association & Museum, Guild Hall in Easthampton, Miami Museum of Modern Art, the Dayton Art Institute, the University of Minnesota, Wellfleet Art Studio, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Parrish Art Museum in Southampton along with many others. Yamamoto died in 1994.