Key Hiraga 1936-2000

平賀敬 Ascetic

Footnotes

Provenance
Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner
Private Collection, Japan

禁慾主義者（行者）
水墨油彩紙本
1961年作

簽名：行者 Key Hiraga 61

來源
現藏家直接得自藝術家
日本私人收藏

Born in Tokyo and raised in Morioka, Key Hiraga was compelled at first by his family to study economics. But the impulse to create was too powerful, and it was not long after Hiraga left his studies behind that he emerged as one of the most distinct artists working in Japan. His works were eagerly acquired by international collectors, including William S. Lieberman, the curator of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, who included a painting of Hiraga's in the ground-breaking New Japanese Painting and Sculpture exhibition at MoMA, which toured eight US museums between 1965 and 1967. It was also in 1965 that Hiraga won the New Artist Prize at the National Exhibition and the National Young Artists Grand Prix, which included a scholarship to study in Paris and which he took up in 1966.

Featured here are a number of Hiraga's earliest drawings, demonstrating the young artist's restless talent, as well as a signature work from his years in Paris. In the "Untitled" works on paper, or in the drawing titled Ascetic(Lot 2), we see Hiraga refining the themes, images and styles that would define his career: the anxious male avatar who would become his alter-ego (in this case, the satirized ascetic who seems to be knotted himself up), the interlocking forms and overlapping narratives, the compartmentalization of the composition, and the apparent influence of European abstraction. With Bats on the Canal(Lot 6) we have a rare early work in color, wherein Hiraga takes his whimsical subject and renders it a play technique, form and color.

With Man and Woman(Lot 1) from 1975, we see Hiraga's technique, style, and joie de vivre in full bloom. A discreetly sized canvas, its diminutive scale points to its somewhat risqué theme. A female figure gazes at the viewer, he hand demurely covering her smiling lips. Typical of Hiraga's works, she has three sets of eyes, each telling a different story: one penetrating and bloodshot, another shy and embarrassed, another dilated and unfocused, green with either envy or ecstasy. Her skin is a light blue and covered in darker freckles. Here hair is a wild orange shell. Her breasts are exposed, with a set of toes improbably inching their way out of her dress. Also typical of his works, Hiraga uses multiple internal framings of the scene, further suggesting the intimate nature of the scene.

At the foreground is the back of a man's, bent over an expanse of spaghetti noodles. The lurid expectations of the viewer are disrupted, and the painting becomes a visual and auditory joke, and the woman in turn seems to be laughing at us for our voyeurism. With a color scheme that fines a kind of balance in high contrasts, Hiraga offers his robust, full-bodied view of life, rich with humanity and humor, qualities that have made him one of the most distinct Japanese artists of the last century.

生於東京，在盛岡市生長的平賀敬最初在家人的強迫下修讀經濟學，但因為他抵擋不住內心對藝術創作衝勁，在他放棄學業專心作畫之後，便旋即成為日本最出色的藝術家之一。他的作品被國際上的多位藏家所熱切追捧，包括紐約現代藝術博物館（MoMA）館長利栢曼（William S. Lieberman）。利栢曼更在MoMA舉辦首個《新一代日本繪畫與雕塑展》，並於1965至1967年年間，在八家不同的美國博物館巡迴展出。1965年，平賀敬在「National Exhibition」及「National Young Artists Grand Prix」中奪得了「新晉藝術家大獎」，他亦因此而獲得留學獎金，於翌年遠赴巴黎開展其藝術生涯。

這次多幅平賀敬早期的畫作，將藝術家年輕時期大放異彩的創作才華表露無遺，當中亦包括平賀敬在巴黎留學時期的代表作。從「無題」的紙上作品，或題名《Ascetic》（拍品編號2）（意謂：禁慾主義者）的畫作中，我們都能看見平賀敬在不斷調整創作題材、畫像和風格，塑造出他個人的藝術創作風格，例如那個焦慮不安的男性人形獸為藝術家自己的化身，用諷刺的手法呈現看似作繭自縛的禁慾主義者、或者運用交纏的形式和重疊的描繪手法、圖像的間隔方式，還有受歐洲抽象畫派影響的表現方式。《運河上的蝙蝠》（拍品編號6）為平賀敬早期作品中少有的著色作品，平賀敬以玩味的手法、形式和色彩將畫中具顛覆性的主題出乎意料的呈現出來。

在1975年的作品《男與女》（拍品編號1）中，平賀敬的技巧、風格和人生品味樂趣可謂達至登峰造極的境地。他對於畫布的大小十分嚴謹，細小的尺寸與他那近乎淫意的主題息息相關。作品中，一個女性人像凝視着觀者，並以手端莊地掩蓋着上揚的嘴唇。在平賀敬典型作品之中，她往往擁有三種不同的眼神，各自訴說着不同的故事：第一種眼神銳利，眼睛佈滿紅筋；第二種則害羞、尷尬；最後一種則瞪着眼，目光散渙，滄桑中帶有嫉妒或狂迷的神緒。她的肌膚呈淡藍色，帶有深色雀斑，還有一頭橙皮般的髮色。此外，她露出了胸部，腳趾則從裙子下伸出。另一個平賀敬作品的特色是，他喜在同一場景內重複表述同一物象，以加深作品中的親密主題。

在較前位置畫有一位男子的背面，他俯身傾向一大堆意粉。畫作變成了一幅視覺和聽覺上的笑話，觀者心裏那種令人生畏的念頭頓時一驅而散，而畫中女人則因為我們偷窺着他們而掩嘴竊笑。平賀敬運用高對比的平衡色調，呈現閱歷豐富的人生理念，同時充滿人性和幽默感的特色，使他成為上世紀最出色的日本藝術家之一。