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Lot Essay
Born in Tokyo in 1936, as a young man Key Hiraga worked at a tattoo parlour in the Asakusa, a district was notorious for hedonists, woman-seekers, hunters of sensual pleasures in old Japan. In 1963 he received the prestigious Shell Prize, which allowed him to travel to Paris to study for a year. During this time the subject of his painting found focus on the raunchy society of Pigalle, a neighbourhood notorious for the Moulin Rouge cabaret. Perhaps some of the wild characters he encountered in both of these places are featured in The Elegant Life of Mr. H No. 35 (Lot 119) and Personnages Enlaces (Lot 120). Both works are crafted in Hiraga’s unique method of painting in which he used thick layers of oil paint atop his canvases to create grotesque surfaces that resembled the texture of shikkui plaster, a Japanese lime-based material used for hundreds of years in houses, temples and castles.
In the early 1970s Hiraga’s style became more figurative and realistic when he switched from using oil to acrylic paint. Interior With a Kite and Corridor (Lot 118) is representative of this later period of Hiraga’s work. The composition depicts pallid-faced geishas arranged languidly surrounding a John. A finished customer makes his winged-escape out the doors on the left, while through the heart-shaped window on the right a shadowy figure approaches. Throughout his career, until his death in 2000, Hiraga maintained his focus on utopian eroticism. His works are included in the collections of institutions across the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the National Museum of Art in Osaka.
In the early 1970s Hiraga’s style became more figurative and realistic when he switched from using oil to acrylic paint. Interior With a Kite and Corridor (Lot 118) is representative of this later period of Hiraga’s work. The composition depicts pallid-faced geishas arranged languidly surrounding a John. A finished customer makes his winged-escape out the doors on the left, while through the heart-shaped window on the right a shadowy figure approaches. Throughout his career, until his death in 2000, Hiraga maintained his focus on utopian eroticism. His works are included in the collections of institutions across the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the National Museum of Art in Osaka.