UC Irvine

My dissertation traces the life of Japanese oil painter Kazuki Yasuo (1911-1974). One of postwar Japan’s most significant oil painters, he is not well-represented in English Language scholarship on the period, a lacuna this dissertation seeks to help rectify. The introduction presents a brief history of oil painting (Yōga) in Japan, the problems of representing war experiences in postwar Japan, and the cultural climate to contextualize Kazuki’s corpus. The subsequent chapters recount Kazuki’s life and work chronologically. Chapter One begins with his family background and early interest in art, particularly painting, culminating in his study at Japan’s premier art academy. Chapter Two picks up with his graduation and chronicles his early career struggles, followed by his conscription and culminating in his capture by the military forces of the USSR. Chapter Three describes the conditions of the time spent by Kazuki, as well as hundreds of thousands of other Japanese POWs, in the infamous “Gulag Archipelago” of labor camps in Siberia. This time would go on to inform his most significant body of work, the Siberia Series. I also recount his repatriation after two grueling years in Siberia, and the eight- year interregnum that followed, during which he could not bring himself to represent his Siberia experiences. Chapter Four then focuses closely on the Siberia Series, which, after breaking through his extended representational silence, dominated his artistic output for the remaining years of his life (and continues to define his posthumous legacy). Here I also focus on the analysis of paintings of the series and the broader meaning and implications of it, both in relation to Kazuki’s oeuvre as well as significant postwar Japanese artists and postwar Japanese art more generally. Additionally, I triangulate Kazuki’s position in postwar art, and his commonalities and divergences from significant war-related artists of his times. The Conclusion traces Kazuki’s final days, as well as his postwar and posthumous legacy.