Anti-nuke Japanese artist in Brooklyn

May 13, 2014

U.S.-based artist continues anti-nuke message, gives 'answer' to dead father

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201405130039

By KYOSUKE YAMAMOTO/ Staff Writer

NEW YORK--For more than 30 years, Kunio Iizuka has been producing anti-nuclear paintings in the country that his father hated.

From his studio in Brooklyn, New York, Iizuka has vividly portrayed the horrors of nuclear warfare and the dangers of nuclear energy, delivered his message to the United Nations and influenced a new generation of artists.

But now, the 75-year-old chairman of the Japanese Artists Association of New York feels it may be time to slow down.

“I don’t have the power to paint pictures about atomic bombs anymore,” he said.

Iizuka was born in Tokyo, but family issues prevented his parents from marrying. Raised by his mother, Iizuka often read art magazines and developed an interest in overseas artwork.

After graduating from high school, he studied at an art school in Japan and then moved to the United States in 1961.

He began his art activities in earnest in 1964 based on the vague theme “humans and civilization.”

However, Iizuka narrowed his focus to nuclear weapons in 1971, after he temporarily returned to Japan and met his father in Nagasaki after a long interval.

His father took him to the Nagasaki International Culture Hall (the current Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum), where Iizuka was shocked by the photos of children charred by the U.S. atomic bombing of the city on Aug. 9, 1945.

When they left the hall, his father told Iizuka for the first time, “I was also exposed to radiation (from the bomb).”

A day after the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Iizuka’s father, then 27, went to the destroyed city to look for survivors.

“I hate the United States for dropping atomic bombs (on Japan),” the father told his son.

His father’s remarks and the photos of the burned children weighed heavily on Iizuka after he returned to New York. He developed a hatred for nuclear weapons and their destructive power, and decided to spread an “anti-atomic bomb” message to the world through his art.

In 1980, he began painting under this theme while reading books about atomic bomb victims.

After five years of work, he completed “Flame Nagasaki” and “Fallout Hiroshima,” both 2 meters high and 4.5 meters wide.

“Flame Nagasaki” shows children struggling against orange flames. “Fallout Hiroshima” features people reduced to ashes by the nuclear blast.

These paintings were his “answer” to his father, who had died before they were completed.

With the cooperation of atomic bomb victims’ organizations and the Japanese Foreign Ministry, Iizuka held an exhibition in the lobby of the United Nations in 1995.

Since then, he has painted under the theme “human tragedies, victims.” His art includes works related to the 1986 nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, the 9/11 terror attacks against the United States, and the March 2011 triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

In his “Mother and Child,” a weeping mother holds a dead child in her arms. The sun is black, and the buildings on the red background appear to be nuclear reactors.

Although Iizuka might be considering hanging up his paint brushes, about 10 young Japanese artists living in New York formed a group based on the anti-nuclear themes that Iizuka has long espoused.

“Inheriting my ideas against atomic bombs and nuclear power plants, these young artists will continue to paint pictures,” Iizuka said.