For decades, while Taro Ichihashi’s art was selling to collectors around the world, the abstract painter worked behind a padlocked gate in his Brooklyn studio.
Once the toast of Washington, DC, art circles, Ichihashi left the limelight in 1980 to chase his New York City dream.
“My experience in New York was not a happy story,” says the 76-year-old during a break from his late-night work.
When the Sado Island native arrived in Tokyo in the early ’60s as a high school graduate, his abstract pieces were shunned by the established schools.
Meanwhile, New York City artists like Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg were turning the art world on its head. Ichihashi was enthralled.
With finances thin, he landed with relatives in Washington, DC, in 1973. A prominent curator discovered Ichihashi’s early work.
Interest in the Japanese artist grew and his surrealist works were soon hanging in the US capital’s top galleries.
But New York beckoned. In 1983, he and his first wife bought a $35,000 shopfront in Williamsburg, which at the time was “one of the worst neighborhoods in New York City.”
Three years later, his wife died from an asthma affliction at just 43. “I always tried to escape,” says Ichihashi. “But, financially, I didn’t have enough money to move.”
Williamsburg has since become gentrified.
An Italian clam bar and Swedish tobacco shop sit across the street. Ichihashi has received offers to buy his property, but he says it is the only place he is able to paint.
Last fall, he opened his studio to the public.
His recent pieces feature the ocean and mountains of Sado, where he maintains a home and visits several times a year.
“I have grown personally,” says Ichihashi, “and my art has gradually become more modest and quiet.”
Gallery Exhibition
Jun 12–Jul 9
Gallery Reception
Free
Open to adults, invitees and Members only
