There is a surprising dearth of material on Nakamura and little in terms of his own statements about his work. What is published of the latter is a peppering of fragments of conversations taken from articles. Nakamura’s most substantive interview about his art, with Joan Murray in 1979, has been published only in a master’s thesis. Nakamura was not the most forthcoming individual when discussing art, nor did he write much about it; this may have hindered more expansive studies, despite the fact that some excellent articles dealing with the artist have been written. Additionally, his contributions to the history of art in Canada are more often than not subsumed under the banner of the Painters Eleven.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
1952
Picture Loan Society, Toronto.
1953
Hart House, University of Toronto.
1955–56
Nakamura: Recent Works, Jerrold Morris International Gallery, Toronto.
1956
Gallery of Contemporary Art, Toronto.
Picture Loan Society, Toronto.
1958
Gallery of Contemporary Art, Toronto.
1962
Jerrold Morris International Gallery, Toronto.
1965
Jerrold Morris International Gallery, Toronto.
1967–70
Waddington Gallery, Montreal.
Jerrold Morris International Gallery, Toronto.
1970
Kazuo Nakamura: A Retrospective, Hart House, University of Toronto.
1974–75
Kazuo Nakamura: A Retrospective of 20 Years, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa. Travelled to Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; London Public Library and Museum London, Ontario; Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery, Halifax; Rodman Hall Art Centre, St. Catharines, Ontario; Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston.
1984
Kazuo Nakamura, 1954–1985, Moore Gallery, Hamilton.
1991
Number Structure, Christopher Cutts Gallery, Toronto.
1994
Kazuo Nakamura, Christopher Cutts Gallery, Toronto.
1996
Number Structures, Christopher Cutts Gallery, Toronto.
1999
Topology Paintings, Christopher Cutts Gallery, Toronto.
2001–2
The Method of Nature, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa. Travelled to Confederation Centre Art Gallery, Charlottetown; Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston; Art Gallery of Hamilton.
Tashme2, Gendai Gallery, Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, Toronto.
2004
Kazuo Nakamura: A Human Measure, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.
2018
January–February, Kazuo Nakamura: Estate Works 1950’s and 60’s, Christopher Cutts Gallery, Toronto.
Key Group Exhibitions
1950
Unaffiliated Artists Exhibition, Toronto.
1951
25th Annual Exhibition: Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour, Toronto.
1952
Canadian Society of Graphic Art, Toronto.
1953
27th Annual Exhibition: Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour, Toronto.
Abstracts at Home, The Robert Simpson Co., Toronto.
1954
Painters Eleven, Roberts Gallery, Toronto.
Drawings & Prints: Cahén, Nakamura & Town, Eglinton Gallery, Toronto.
1955
First Biennial Exhibition of Canadian Painting, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
20th Biennial International Watercolor Exhibition, The Brooklyn Museum.
Painters Eleven, Roberts Gallery, Toronto.
1956
Canadian Abstract Paintings, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
Painters Eleven & American Abstract Artists’ Exhibition, Riverside Museum, New York.
Fourth International Exhibition of Drawings and Engravings, Lugano, Switzerland.
1956–57
Canadian Abstract Art, Smithsonian Museum tour, United States, various locations.
1957
Four Man Exhibition, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.
Canadian Contemporary Painting, Australian tour, various locations.
Painters Eleven, Park Gallery, Toronto.
1958
First Inter-American Bienniale, Mexico City.
International Festival of Art, New York.
1958–59
Contemporary Canadian Art, Central Museum, Utrecht and Groningen Museum, Netherlands; Museum Rath, Geneva; Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne.
1959
A Canadian Portfolio, Dallas Museum of Contemporary Art.
Canadian Graphics and Drawings, Belgrade, Zagreb, Ljubljana.
20th Biennial International Watercolor Exhibition, The Brooklyn Museum.
1960
Canadian Art, Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno, Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, S.E.P. Mexico City.
Canadian Prints, Drawings and Watercolors, American Federation of Arts, New York, American tour, various locations.
Nakamura & Town, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
Painters Eleven, Stable Gallery, Montreal, and Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
1961
Fifth International Hallmark Art Award Exhibition, New York, and international tour.
IIe Biennale de Paris, Musée d’art moderne, Paris.
1962
Canadian Painting, Polish tour, various locations.
Canadian Contemporary Art, Kenya.
Canadian Contemporary Art, Louisville.
Commonwealth Painting, London, U.K.
Recent Acquisitions, Museum of Modern Art, New York.
International Seminar Exhibition, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, N.J.
1963
Recent Acquisitions, Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Contemporary Canadian Painting, Rochester Memorial Art Gallery, New York.
Canadian Paintings, London, U.K.
Members’ Loan Gallery Acquisitions, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo.
1964
First Biennial, Drawings and Watercolours, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
Four Painters/Sculptors, London Public Library and Art Museum, London, Ontario.
World Show, Washington Square Gallery, New York.
1965
Cardiff Commonwealth Festival Exhibition, U.K.
Art & Engineering, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.
1967
Centennial Exhibition of Canadian Prints and Drawings, Australian tour, various locations.
Sculpture ’67, Toronto.
Centennial Exhibition of Quebec and Ontario Painters, Ontario tour, various locations.
Ontario Centennial Art, Toronto.
1968
Canadian Artists ’68, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.
Seventh Biennial Exhibition of Canadian Painting, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
1970–71
Loeb Collection, National Gallery of Canada. Travelling exhibition, various locations.
1971
Painters Eleven—1953 to 1960, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa.
1972
Toronto Painting 1953–65, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.
Ontario Society of Artists 101st Exhibition, Toronto.
1973
Canada Art Bank Exhibition, Paris.
1978–80
A Canadian Survey, Imperial Oil Collection, circulated by the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.
The Japanese Canadian Centennial Art Exhibition in Ontario, Toronto.
1979–81
Painters Eleven in Retrospective, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, and Canadian tour.
1983–84
Firestone Collection European Tour, Ontario Heritage Foundation. Travelled to London, Paris, Madrid.
1984
Toronto Painters of the Sixties, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.
Masterpieces of the 20th Century, West Palm Beach Gallery.
1987
Shikata Ga Nai: Contemporary Art by Japanese-Canadians, Hamilton Artists Inc.
1988
Inaugural Exhibition, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
1990
Academicians Collect, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, Academy House, Toronto.
1991
New Canadian Embassy Exhibition, Tokyo.
Group 91, Christopher Cutts Gallery, Toronto.
1992
Art contemporain du Canada, Ader Tajan, Espace Chapon, Paris.
1992–93
The 1950s—The Crisis of Abstraction in Canada, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
Achieving the Modern: Canadian Abstract Painting and Design in the 1950s, Winnipeg Art Gallery.
1994
Painters Eleven, Mead Museum, Amherst College, M.A., and Anderson Gallery, Buffalo.
1998
Art Forum Berlin.
1999
Translinear, McMaster Museum of Art, Hamilton.
2002–3
Painters 15, Shanghai and Guangdong, and Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto.
Selected Writings by Kazuo Nakamura
Woods, Kathryn Reid. Kazuo Nakamura. Oshawa: The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 1974. Exhibition catalogue.
In this catalogue, Nakamura published his first and only major statement on his work, outside of interviews.
Critical Interpretations
Baele, Nancy. “Nakamura Uncovers the Inner Structure in Life.” Ottawa Citizen, October 25, 1993, B6.
Broad, Graham. “Painters Eleven: The Shock of the New.” Beaver 84, no. 1 (February/March 2004): 20–26.
Dault, Gary Michael. “Kazuo Nakamura: An Appreciation—Artist Was ‘Looking for the Grand Theory.’” Globe and Mail, April 26, 2002, R13.
———. “Kazuo Nakamura’s Lucky Numbers.” Globe and Mail, May 15, 1999, E2.
Grison, Brian. “Kazuo Nakamura.” Artichoke 17, no. 1 (Spring, 2005): 12–15.
———. “Oppression and Transcendence: The Iconography of Kazuo Nakamura’s Grids.” Master’s thesis, Carleton University, 2003.
Kazuo Nakamura: A Human Measure. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2004. Exhibition catalogue.
Kazuo Nakamura: The Method of Nature. Oshawa: The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2001. Exhibition catalogue.
Milroy, Sarah. “Adding and Abstracting with Nakamura.” Globe and Mail, November 24, 2001, R5.
Nowell, Iris. Painters Eleven: The Wild Ones of Canadian Art. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2010.
Tashme2: Early Works of Kazuo Nakamura. Toronto: Gendai Gallery, 2001. Exhibition catalogue.
Torizuka, Sakura. “Kazuo Nakamura, a Living Treasure of Canadian Art: Gendai Gallery Presents Tashme2, Early Works of Kazuo Nakamura,” New Canadian 65, no. 14 (2001): E1–E2.
Woods, Kathryn Reid. A History of the Painters Eleven. Oshawa: The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 1970.
———. Kazuo Nakamura. Oshawa: The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 1974. Exhibition catalogue.
Key Interviews
Fujino, David. “The World of Kazuo Nakamura.” Tora 1, no. 2 (1972): 5–8.
Murray, Joan. Interview with Kazuo Nakamura. Unpublished manuscript, June 12, 1979, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery archives, Oshawa. Reproduced in Brian Grison, “Oppression and Transcendence: The Iconography of Kazuo Nakamura’s Grids.” Master’s thesis, Carleton University, 2003, appendix 2, 246–52.
———. Notes of a phone conversation with Kazuo Nakamura. Unpublished manuscript, late 1970s, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery archives, Oshawa.
Schlichting, Leonard. Letter interview with Kazuo Nakamura. Unpublished manuscript, March 20, 1978. Winnipeg Art Gallery archives. Reproduced in Grison, “Oppression and Transcendence,” appendix 2, 245–46.
Audio and Video
Freedman, Harry. Images: A Symphony (1958). Performed by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Massey Hall, Toronto, 1960. (Impressions of Lawren S. Harris’s Blue Mountain, Kazuo Nakamura’s Structure at Dusk, and Jean Paul Riopelle’s Landscape).
Jenkins, Patrick, Richard Reeves, Lisa Morse, et al. Eleven in Motion: Abstract Expressions in Animation. Toronto Animated Image Society (TAIS), DigiBeta video, 2009, 35 min. http://tais.ca/eleven-in-motion-abstract-expressions-in-animation/.
Nakamura, Kazuo. “Taped Interview.” August 15, 1967. http://ccca.concordia.ca/history/dorothy_cameron/english/nakamura.html.
Reid, Dennis. “Remembering Kazuo Nakamura.” The Arts Today, CBC Radio, April 17, 2002.
Further Reading
Asquith, Pamela J., and Arne Kalland, eds. Japanese Images of Nature: Cultural Perspectives. London: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 1997.
Garnet, Dustin Ian. “A Storied History of Art Education: The Art Department at the Central Technical School, 1892–2014.” PhD dissertation, Concordia University, 2015.
Harper, J. Russell. Painting in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966.
Hickman, Pamela, and Masako Fukawa. Righting Canada’s Wrongs: Japanese Canadian Internment in the Second World War. Toronto: James Lorimer & Company, 2011.
Japanese Canadian Artists Directory. www.japanesecanadianartists.com.
Kanbara, Bryce. “Japanese Canadians in the Arts.” Essay accompanying Being Japanese Canadian: Reflections on a Broken World, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, February–August 2019.
———. Shikata Ga Nai: Contemporary Art by Japanese Canadians. Hamilton: Hamilton Artists Inc., 1987.
Leclerc, Denise. The Crisis of Abstraction in Canada: The 1950s. Ottawa: National Gallery of Art, 1992. Exhibition catalogue.
Murray, Joan. Canadian Art in the Twentieth Century. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1999.
———. Origins of Abstraction in Ontario: The Abstracts at Home Show, 1953. Oshawa: The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 1992.
Nasgaard, Roald. Abstract Painting in Canada. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2008.
Poon, Jessica. “‘Harmonious Disagreement’: Painters Eleven, Abstraction, and the Construction of Canadian Modernism in the 1950s.” PhD dissertation, University of British Columbia, 2018.
Reid, Dennis. A Concise History of Canadian Painting, 3rd ed. Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Sunahara, Ann Gomer. The Politics of Racism, 3rd ed. Burnaby, BC: Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre, 2020.
Whitelaw, Anne, Brian Foss, and Sandra Paikowsky, eds. The Visual Arts in Canada: The Twentieth Century. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2010.
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