TFAM to unveil “Shigeru Komatsuzaki: Painter, Illustrator and Dreamweaver” exhibition

On July 5, the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum will be launching an exhibition featuring works by Japanese painter and illustrator Shigeru Komatsuzaki (1915-2001) as a special summer vacation event for children. Known in Japan as a “giant in science fiction illustrations,” Komatsuzaki got his start illustrating novels serialized in newspapers and later moved on to paintings used in children’s magazines and other media. Among the principal motifs of his works were warrior tales, aircraft and warships, as well as robots, superheroes and futuristic designs—of which helped fire the imaginations of both children and his adult peers alike, inspiring two generations of Japanese with dreams of a better, high-tech future. TFAM’s exhibition, “Shigeru Komatsuzaki: Painter, Illustrator and Dreamweaver,” features some 100 of his works and memorabilia, including original paintings, illustrations and writings, “box art” printed on packages of plastic models, and early works as an artist-in-training of traditional Japanese paintings.