Nobuya Abe was born on 4 February 1913 in Niigata, Japan. Self-taught, he left secondary school to devote himself to painting and made his debut in the early 1930s, taking part in various group exhibitions. From 1936 to 1938 he travelled through Korea, northern China, Manchuria and Mongolia studying oriental art. In 1937 he published Yōsei no kyori (The Distance of Fairies) with the poet and critic Shūzō Takiguchi, a collection of twelve poems and twelve drawings that brought him to the attention of the avant-garde; in the same years he also worked in experimental photography. From 1939 to 1942 and from 1947 to 1953 he exhibited with the Bijutsu Bunka Kyōkai (Art and Culture Association), the group that brought together the Japanese surrealists. Two tendencies coexisted within it: one linked to surrealism, exploring the deepest layers of the psyche, and the other, to which Abe belonged, oriented towards organic abstraction.
In 1949 he joined the Executive Committee of the Japanese Artists’ Association and organised Japan’s participation in the Second International Art Exhibition in New Delhi (1953). He took part in the first São Paulo Bienal (1951) and in 1952, 1964 and 1976 the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, and served on the juries of the Venice Biennale, the São Paulo Bienal and the Guggenheim International Award in New York. In 1957 he joined the Executive Committee of the International Association of Plastic Arts, for which he travelled until 1962 across Europe, India, Pakistan and Israel; in 1958 he visited the United States on a State Department grant. After several solo exhibitions, including those at the Yoseido Gallery in Tokyo and the Galleria del Grattacielo in Milan (1960), he settled in Italy, in Rome.
In constant contact with the European and Milanese art scene, where artists such as Lucio Fontana and Piero Manzoni were working, his presence in Italy became a meeting point between the avant-gardes of the time, such as Spatialism and the Zero group, and those coming from Japan. He exhibited at the Galleria del Cavallino in Venice and the Galleria del Naviglio in Milan, and in 1965 took part in Zero Avantgarde. In 1962 he created murals for the Ente Nazionale per le Biblioteche Popolari e Scolastiche in Rome.
In 1966 he was one of the 46 artists in The New Japanese Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, an exhibition shown in eight American museums between 1965 and 1967. In 1967 he brought together a group of six artists who shared his idea of colour as light, presented in the exhibition L’Illumination at the Galleria d’Arte L’Argentario in Trento. He died in Rome in May 1971. Retrospectives were devoted to him in Japan in 2000–2001 and 2018.
Nobuya Abe in his atelier, Rome, 1971. © Galleria del Naviglio, Milano
GALLERY
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2020
“Nobuya Abe”, Studio Gariboldi, Milan
2018
“阿部展也―あくなき越境者” (Abe Nobuya: akunaki ekkyōsha), Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima; Niigata City Art Museum, Niigata; The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, Japan
2000–2001
“阿部展也展 画家・阿部展也発見” (Abe Nobuya-ten: gaka Abe Nobuya hakken), Niigata City Art Museum, Niigata; Kawaguchiko Museum of Art, Fujikawaguchiko; Tokyo Station Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1981
“Nobuya Abe: 1948–1961”, Tokyo Gallery (東京画廊), Tokyo, Japan
1977
“Ricordo di Nobuya Abe”, Galleria d’Arte L’Argentario, Trento
1970
“Nobuya Abe”, Galleria d’Arte L’Argentario, Trento
1967
“Illumination”, Galleria d’Arte L’Argentario, Trento
“Nobuya Abe”, Galleria del Naviglio, Milan
1965
“Nobuya Abe”, Galleria del Cavallino, Venice
1964
“Nobuya Abe”, Galleria del Naviglio, Milan
1963
With Galleria Cadario, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence
1962
“Nobuya Abe”, Galleria del Cavallino, Venice
“Nobuya Abe”, Galleria Cadario, Milan
Galleria George Lester, Rome
Solo exhibition of lithographs, Istanbul, Turkey
1961
Galleria Alibert, Rome
1960
“Indefinite Space”, Shirokiya Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Galleria del Grattacielo, Milan
1957
Yoseido Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1956
Japanese Watercolour Museum, Tokyo, Japan
1955
Yoseido Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1952
Takemiya Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026
Italy–Japan. Japanese Artists in Milan since the 1960s, Studio Gariboldi, Milan
2025
“MOT Collection 30th Anniversary Exhibit: Nine Profiles 1935→2025”, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Japan (in two parts, April – November 2025)
2024
“I Feel Good”, Studio Gariboldi, Milan
2016
“Japan”, Studio Gariboldi, Milan
1985–1986
“Reconstructions: Avant-Garde Art in Japan 1945–1965”, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, United Kingdom (8 December 1985 – 9 February 1986); Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, United Kingdom (22 February – 5 April 1986)
1972
“戦後日本美術の展開 ― 具象表現の変貌” (Development of Postwar Japanese Art: Figurative Art), The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
1967
“Il Visconte”, Galleria d’Arte La Borgognona, Rome
“Il Naviglio per l’Argentario”, Galleria d’Arte L’Argentario, Trento
“Gli artisti per Firenze”, Museo Internazionale d’Arte Contemporanea, Florence
“第9回日本国際美術展” (IX Tokyo Biennale), Tokyo, Japan
“Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture”, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, United States
“L’Illumination”, Galleria d’Arte L’Argentario, Trento
1966
“The New Japanese Painting and Sculpture”, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, United States (touring exhibition to eight American museums between 1965 and 1967)
“第7回現代日本美術展” (7th Contemporary Art Exhibition of Japan), Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
“Il gioco degli artisti”, Galleria del Naviglio, Milan
“The exhibition of works by contemporary Italian artists”, BSN Niigata Art Museum, Niigata, Japan
“Nuove tendenze in Italia”, Galleria Studio, Matera
“Modern Art of Japan”, Galleria del Cavallino, San Basso church, Venice
1965
“在外日本作家展 ― ヨーロッパとアメリカ” (Japanese Artists Abroad: Europe and America), The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
“V Rassegna di arti figurative di Roma e del Lazio”, Rome
“Zero Avantgarde”, Galleria del Cavallino, Venice; then Milan and Turin
“Convergenze”, Galleria d’Arte della Casa do Brasil, Rome
“Convergenze”, Galleria Ferrari, Verona
1964
Exhibition of lithographs, Galleria Pagani, Milan
“IIe Festival international des arts plastiques de la Côte d’Azur”, France
“Mostra Internazionale”, Galleria Quindici, Bologna
Galleria George Lester, Rome
“Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture”, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, United States
1963
Galleria Cadario, Milan
Biennale del Piccolo Formato, Palermo
“Opere degli artisti giapponesi in Italia”, Istituto Giapponese di Cultura, Rome
1962
Group exhibition of lithographs with Italian artists, Yoseido Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1961
“Mostra internazionale del surrealismo”, Galleria Schwarz, Milan
Galleria Pater, Milan
“4. mednarodna grafična razstava”, Moderna galerija, Ljubljana, Yugoslavia
Galleria Ferrari, Verona
1960
“超現実絵画の展開” (Development of Japanese Surrealistic Painting), The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
1955
“日米抽象美術展” (Abstract Art Exhibition: Japan and U.S.A.), The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
“International Watercolor Exhibition, 18th Biennial”, Brooklyn Museum, New York, United States
1953
“Second International Art Exhibition”, New Delhi, India
“抽象と幻想 ― 非写実絵画をどう理解するか” (Chūshō to gensō), The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan (1953–1954)
1952
Exhibition of thirty Japanese painters living in the United States, “Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Paintings”, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, United States
1951
“I Bienal do Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo”, São Paulo, Brazil
Travelling exhibition of the American Federation of Arts, United States
1949
Exhibition of Japanese artists, Isaac Delgado Museum of Art, New Orleans, United States
1939–1942, 1947–1953
Exhibits regularly with the Bijutsu Bunka Kyōkai (美術文化協会), Tokyo, Japan
1932–1939
Exhibits with the Dokuritsu Bijutsu Kyōkai (独立美術協会), Tokyo, Japan
SOURCES
