Inoue Kozo between Japan and Paris
Inoue Kozo was born in Osaka in 1937 and died in 2017. After studying aesthetics and art history, he moved to Paris in 1960, where he developed an international artistic career.
He attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and worked within the cosmopolitan environment of the French capital.
From the 1960s onward, his work focused on simplified forms, spatial balance and carefully controlled colour relationships. His compositions often feature clear shapes suspended within deep and quiet fields of colour.
This visual economy became one of the defining features of his work.
Silkscreen and the study of colour
Silkscreen printing played a central role in Inoue’s artistic practice.
He developed sophisticated methods of colour gradation that allowed subtle tonal transitions across the surface. These transitions create a sense of depth without relying on conventional perspective.
His forms remain simple and immediately legible, while colour continuously changes their visual weight and spatial presence.
The result is an art based on balance, rhythm and a marked sense of stillness.
Exhibitions and international activity
From the 1960s onward, Inoue exhibited in Japan and Europe.
Documented exhibitions include Osaka in 1960, Tokyo in 1966 and Paris in 1968. His work later appeared in numerous solo and group exhibitions internationally.
Alongside painting and printmaking, he produced murals, environmental works and public art projects. He also collaborated with manufacturers, applying his visual language to objects, textiles and furniture.
Available work in the gallery
Among the works currently available by Inoue Kozo is Composition . View the full artwork page for details, dimensions and documentation.
Works in public collections
Works by Inoue Kozo are held in important public collections.
These include the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Musée Carnavalet, the Osaka City Museum of Fine Arts and the Hakone Open-Air Museum.
In the later part of his career, he became particularly interested in the camellia, developing new variations on the relationship between natural form and abstraction.
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