Key Hiraga was born in Tokyo in 1936. He was a Japanese artist who, after graduating from the University of Tokyo, devoted himself to art. In 1956, he began participating in important group exhibitions, marking the beginning of his artistic career. In 1965, a scholarship enabled Hiraga to move to Paris.
After an initial cultural shock, he enriched his artistic practice, which at the time was characterised by an almost total monochromatism, with a burst of colour. That same year, William Lieberman, curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, was struck by the quality of Hiraga’s paintings while visiting his studio and decided to include them in the exhibition New Japanese Painting and Sculpture in 1966.
In 1966–1967, Hiraga joined the ORA Group, associated with art critic Gérald Gassiot-Talabot, who placed the young artist within the so-called Narrative Figuration movement. This artistic movement differed from the social neutrality of the School of Paris and the formalism of American Pop Art.
A crucial moment in Hiraga’s career came in 1969, when he was selected, together with six other artists, to represent Japan at the 10th São Paulo Biennial. On that occasion, art critic R. C. Kennedy wrote that without Hiraga’s presence the Biennial would have been a sadder occasion, and that in a mere handful of canvases he revealed himself as a great pictorial artist.
During his stay in Europe, Hiraga participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in countries including France, the Netherlands, Italy and the United Kingdom, as well as in Japan, where he returned permanently in 1977. Key Hiraga died in 2000 in Hakone-Yumoto at the age of 64.
© Galleria del Naviglio, Milano
GALLERY
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2026
Key Hiraga’s Room. 1970s Works, Studio Gariboldi, Milan, Italy
Key Hiraga. Works 1966–1971, Galerie Loevenbruck, Paris, France
2025
Key Hiraga, Studio Gariboldi, Milan, Italy
Key Hiraga. The Elegant Life of Mr. H, Nonaka-Hill, Los Angeles, USA
2019
Key Hiraga, Works 1958–1993, Ortuzar Gallery, New York, USA
2015
The Elegant Life of Key Hiraga, Studio Gariboldi, Milan, Italy
2008
The Elegant Life of Key Hiraga. A Japanese Artist in Europe 1965–1974, The Mayor Gallery, London,UK
2000
Hiratsuka Museum of Art, Hiratsuka, Japan
Bokushin Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1974
New Works by Key Hiraga, Fuma Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1972
La elegante vita di Mr. Key, Galleria del Naviglio, Milan, Italy
Galleria Graffica, Tokyo, Japan
1970
Gallery T, Haarlem, Netherlands
1969
The Elegant Life of Key Hiraga, Gallery Seven, Tokyo, Japan
1968
The Elegant Life of Mr. P., Gallery T, Haarlem, Netherlands
1967
Gallery Lambert, Paris, France
Travers Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
1966
Travers Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026
Italy–Japan. Japanese Artists in Milan since the 1960s, Studio Gariboldi, Milan, Italy
1996
Japanese Ways, Western Means: Art of the 1980s in Japan, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia
1991
Japanese Anti-Art: Now and Then, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan
1981
The 1960s: A Decade of Change in Contemporary Japanese Art, The National Museum of Modern Art,
Tokyo, Japan
1972
Japanese Artists from Europe, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan
Salon des Beaux-Arts and Salon de la Réalité Nouvelle, Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris, France
1969
10th São Paulo Biennial, Modern Frontier section (Eros and Humour), São Paulo, Brazi
1968
ORA Group Exhibition, Galerie Jacqueline Ranson, Paris, France
12 Artistes Japonais 68, various galleries, France
1967
ORA Group Exhibition, Galerie Jacqueline Ranson, Paris, France
L’Oeil de Boeuf, Gallery T, Haarlem, Netherlands
1966
New Japanese Painting and Sculpture, Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
La Figuration Narrative, Galerie Creuze, Paris, France (also Prague, Lausanne and Lyon)
1965
Seize Jeunes Peintres Japonais, Gallery Lambert, Paris, France
Gallery Argos, Nantes, France
1963
Shell Art Award Exhibition, Third Prize, Tokyo, Japan
