2026 Associate Show
Yoo Koo Soo to Yokoo Tadanori’s HANGA Universe
<Part 1>
October 14 (Wed) – 18 (Sun)
Hillside Forum, Daikanyama, Tokyo
To be held simultaneously at the 69th CWAJ Print Show
<Part 2>
October 20 (Tue) – November 9 (Mon)
11:00 – 18:00
First day: 15:00 – 17:00
Last day: 11:00 – 13:00
Frederick Harris Gallery, Tokyo American Club (TAC) B1
2-1-2 Azabudai, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-8649
Admission Free
Yokoo Tadanori, who recently turned 90, has been a central figure in Japanese contemporary art for more than six decades. Rising to fame as a graphic designer in the 1960s, he wove together Pop Art, psychedelia, ukiyo-e, and folk imagery into a style that blurred the line between commercial design and fine art. In 1981, moved by a Picasso retrospective he had seen in New York, he declared himself a full-time painter — a turning point that opened the door to painting, collage, and printmaking, all pursued with the same restless curiosity ever since.
His engagement with printmaking began in 1968, with a poster and catalogue for the Tokyo International Print Biennial. After his “Painter’s Declaration,” he came to see printmaking as a laboratory for painterly experimentation, working across woodcut, lithography, and silkscreen. In 2017, the Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts devoted a major retrospective, HANGA JUNGLE, to his prints alone.
Yokoo and CWAJ
Yokoo’s relationship with CWAJ spans 52 years. Since first showing at the CWAJ Print Show in 1974, he has exhibited almost every year through 2025, contributing 69 prints in all. During a recent visit to his studio ahead of this exhibition, he mentioned with a smile that he now works just two or three days a week — “but as a show gets closer, I’m in the studio every day.” Vivid, powerful new paintings lined the walls of the sunlit studio.
This year’s CWAJ Associate Show brings together 38 original prints for sale (with a few pieces for exhibition only), tracing the full arc of Yokoo’s creative journey. It is a celebration of an artist whose imagination continues to captivate audiences in Japan and around the world.
CWAJ gratefully acknowledges the support of Yokoo Tadanori and the invaluable assistance of Art Planet Y Co., Ltd., and Yokoo’s Circus Inc.in making this exhibition possible.
Born 1936 in Nishiwaki, Hyogo Prefecture. His first Tokyo solo show in 1966 led to a meeting with Yukio Mishima, and that year he won the Grand Prix in prints at the Paris Biennale. In 1970 he designed the Textile Pavilion at Expo ‘70, followed by solo exhibitions abroad at MoMA New York, the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. He designed the stage for Maurice Béjart’s Dionysos and exhibited at the world’s three major biennials — Paris, Venice, and São Paulo — building an international career. The Yokoo Tadanori Museum of Contemporary Art opened in Kobe in 2012, followed by the Yokoo House on Teshima Island, Kagawa, in 2013.
He continues to hold numerous solo exhibitions at museums in Japan and abroad, including the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, and the Tokyo National Museum. His awards include the Mainichi Art Award, induction into the New York ADC Hall of Fame, the Medal with Purple Ribbon, the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays, the Asahi Prize, and the Praemium Imperiale. He was named a Tokyo Metropolitan Meritorious Citizen in 2020, elected to the Japan Art Academy in 2023, and named a Person of Cultural Merit. In 2026, a complete poster collection was published by hesign, Berlin, and a major monograph, Tadanori Yokoo, by Thames & Hudson, London. His works are held in leading museums worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, the British Museum, the Centre Pompidou-Metz, and the Uffizi Gallery.
