Tadanori Yokoo

Tadanori Yokoo, born in Hyogo, Japan, in 1936, had a successful career as a graphic designer from the 1960s until the 1980s. After that, he devoted his energies to painting. At the time of his "conversion" to fine art, the 1980s was dominated by the so-called "New Painting." At first glance, Yokoo's work appears to be a part of this movement, but Yokoo's goal is to discover new potential in painting, which is unrelated to modernism's goal of uncovering the basic forms of art through extreme reductionism.

This conversion was said to be triggered by the shock of seeing the 1980 Picasso exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in New York.