Yasushi SAKAMOTO (1930–2023) was a painter and physician from Ozu, Kikuchi District, Kumamoto Prefecture. In addition to "Sakamoto Yasushi," he also used the artist name "Sakamoto Nei." From 1945, he studied under Zenzo SAKAMOTO while continuing to make art during his studies at Kumamoto University School of Medicine and its Graduate School of Medical Sciences. While working as a physician in regional medical care, he pursued a wide range of forms, including abstract painting, landscape painting, printmaking, and pen drawing.
SAKAMOTO’s work reflects a quiet sense of composition connected to his teacher Zenzo SAKAMOTO, as well as an attentive gaze toward familiar nature and life. A collection exhibition at Tsunagi Art Museum introduced his prints and pen drawings featuring fish as a motif. Through layered lines and planes, these works suggest an approach that transforms concrete subjects into concise, poetic forms. In 1982, he also created a water-themed mural for the Kumamoto City Fire Department, and in 2006 he serialized illustrations for Natsume Soseki’s "Kusamakura" in the evening edition of the Kumamoto Nichinichi Shimbun.
SAKAMOTO exhibited widely at venues including Shiseido Gallery, Kinokuniya Gallery, the Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art, Tsunagi Art Museum, and Uki City Shiranui Museum, and also held solo exhibitions and participated in curated presentations in Paris. After Zenzo SAKAMOTO’s death, he became involved in the establishment of the Sakamoto Zenzo Museum of Art and served as its director from 1995 to March 2008. Through his multiple roles as an artist, physician, and museum director, he helped support the art and culture of Kumamoto.
As people change over the years, works also develop shifts and changes with age. The works offered at Untitled range from comparatively recent pieces of about twenty years to older works that have passed through nearly seventy years.
Small scratches, changes in the paint surface, shifts in paper or support—these are not mere deterioration but traces of the time the work has lived through.
We do not value only perfect condition. We hope you will receive each work as a single existence, together with the time it has accumulated.
Accessories
Whether a work is framed is noted on each work page. Frame condition varies by work; please contact us in advance if you would like details.
We also accept custom framing matched to the work. As each piece is made individually for the space and work, delivery takes approximately two months.
Framed works include a storage box. Depending on the work, a new box may be made after purchase, which may take several weeks.
