EXHIBITION OVERVIEW

An art director of Japanese animations, Yamamoto Nizo was born in 1953 in the Goto Islands in Nagasaki Prefecture. In 1977, he worked as an art assistant for the animated television series Kuma-no-ko Jackie, which was adapted from the novel Monarch, The Big Bear of Tallac by Ernest Thompson Seton. In 1978, he was chosen as art director for the first time for the animated TV series Conan, The Boy in Future. And thereafter, he served as art director for many animated TV series and movies including Jarinko Chie (1981); Detective Holmes (1982); Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986); Grave of the Fireflies (1988), based on the novel by Nosaka Akiyuki and directed by Takahata Isao; Princess Mononoke (1997), directed by Miyazaki Hayao; and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006), based on the novel by Tsutsui Yasutaka and directed by Hosoda Mamoru. Yamamoto Nizo established his reputation as art director with his detailed execution of the background pictures that depict the atmospheres and even temperatures of imaginary spaces by carefully gathering materials for the scenes of the stories and elaborately setting up the scenes, as well as with his outstanding depictions of water and clouds. His depictions of such scenes—sometimes realistic and sometimes imagery—are inspired partly by Impressionist art that Nizo learned on his own. The exhibition “The World of Yamamoto Nizo, Master of Japanese Animation Art Director” displays some 220 works of Nizo’s anime background art, from early to latest, including background pictures, sketches, and image boards selected by the animator himself. This exhibition conveys the fascination of his background pictures that underpinned a number of great scenes in wonderful animations and at the same time added weight to the worlds of those stories.