In this June, Nishimura Gallery celebrates 40th anniversary in Nihonbashi through several relocations, since we opened at Ginza 2 cho-me in 1974. The gallery has held 278 exhibitions―the very first “Richard Lindner Lithographs”, to the latest “New Year New Works 2014”.

At the beginning, we have worked especially hard to introduce British artists who were not very familiar among Japanese people at that time. 

As we had 25 exhibitions of David Hockney, we exhibited the works by British top artists who leave their names in art historyー such as Richard Hamilton, Peter Blake, Anthony Green, Lucian Freud, Bridget Riley, David Nash and so on. Besides, we had a lot of exhibitions of various foreign artists― like Otto Dix, Paul Davis, Horst Antes, Antonio Segui, Walker Evans, Tony Cragg, and Kienholz etc.

At the same time, Nishimura gallery has discovered Japanese new artists and contributed to exhibit their works. In 1975, we had the first exhibition of Kusama Yayoi since she came back from New York, the first solo exhibition of Ushio Shinohara, and the experimental group exhibition "Book as Object”. Following those exhibitions, we had the solo exhibitions of several artists―such as Koji Enokura, Goh Shigi, Yoji Kuri, Isamu Wakabayashi, Natsuyuki Nakanishi, and Tadanori Yokoo― and exhibited many works by advanced sculptors―Katsura Funakoshi, Takashi Fukai, Akira Kamiyama, Akinobu Shimokawa and so on. 

From the 1990's to present, we have produced artists filled with originality and variety― such as Takanobu Kobayashi, Chieko Oshie, Atsuhiko Misawa, Kumi Machida, Asae Soya, and Nahoko Sashida.

On the other hand, APS (Art Prime Street) which was our planning devision produced various tour exhibitions―“The World of Paul Davis”(Odakyu Grand Gallery Shinjuku and toured in 1987), "Hockney's Opera"(Bunkamura The Museum and toured in 1992), "David Nash Spirit of Three Seasons"(The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura and toured in 1995), “Kineo Kuwabara Tokyo Showa Modern” (Tokyo Station Gallery in 1995), "Horst Antes and Kachinas"(Takamatsu City Museum of Art and toured in 2004) and more.

In this exhibition “Nishimura Gallery 40th Anniversary”, we will show the most recent works by seven artists― Chieko Oshie, Takanobu Kobayashi, Nahoko Sashida, Asae Soya, Katsura Funakosi, Kumi Machida, and Atsuhiko Misawa.

*image (left)
© Atsuhiko Misawa
courtesy of the artist and Nishimura Gallery