A bridge between cultures

Minol Araki at the launch of his PIPa design range, 1969

Minol Araki at the launch of his PIPa design range, 1969

Some of us make art purely for personal fulfilment. Minol Araki (1928-2010) was such a person, heir to a now-vanishing East Asian ideal of painting as an essential component of a complete life. That description might call to mind a Chinese scholar, retiring, perhaps exiled, to a mountaintop hermitage after a career in the imperial bureaucracy. Not so Araki. He was a highly successful product designer, fully at home in our contemporary, globalised world. Born in China to Japanese parents, he studied design in Japan after the family moved home at the end of World War II, and was drawn to the work of Raymond Loewy, ‘father of streamlining’ and designer of the Greyhound Scenicruiser bus and Lucky Strike packet.

Boundless Peaks: Ink Paintings by Araki Minol, an exhibition curated by Aaron Rio in 2017, showed how the thrusting young entrepreneur started his first company in 1959 and designed a telescopic desk lamp that sold in the tens of millions. In 1969, Araki launched his own upscale brand, PIPa, before turning his focus to mass-market consumer electronics design. He ran offices in Taipei and Tokyo, and flew regularly to New York, where he would spend weeks at a time not only doing business but also paying lengthy and repeated visits to the great museums and galleries.

At the age of seven, Araki began studying traditional Chinese painting with an old family friend. He would continue to paint throughout his career, but a turning point came in 1973 when he was introduced to Zhang Daqian (1899-1983), whose Calligraphy Couplet in Running Script sold at Bonhams Hong Kong for HK$7,812,500 (£724,307) in June. The charismatic Zhang – globetrotting master painter, forger extraordinaire, cultural shapeshifter and one of the most influential figures in 20th-century Asian art –encouraged Araki in his efforts to carve out a distinctive individual style.

Minol Araki (1928-2010) Man in Thought Showa era (1989-2019), November 1976 ink on paper, dated in Japanese Heishin juichigatsu and sealed 18 x 27in (45.7 x 68.6cm) Estimate: $18,000 - 25,000

Minol Araki (1928-2010) Man in Thought Showa era (1989-2019), November 1976 ink on paper, dated in Japanese Heishin juichigatsu and sealed 18 x 27in (45.7 x 68.6cm) Estimate: $18,000 - 25,000

Minol Araki (1928-2010) Persimmons after Mu Qi Showa era (1989-2019), January 1977 hanging scroll, ink and colours on paper 13⅜ x 13½in (34 x 34.3cm) Estimate: $7,000 - 9,000

Minol Araki (1928-2010) Persimmons after Mu Qi Showa era (1989-2019), January 1977 hanging scroll, ink and colours on paper 13⅜ x 13½in (34 x 34.3cm) Estimate: $7,000 - 9,000

Minol Araki (1928-2010) Bird on a Persimmon Branch Showa era (1989-2019), April 1978 ink and colours on paper, 26⅞ x 54¼in (68.3 x 137.8cm) Estimate: $22,000 - 28,000

Minol Araki (1928-2010) Bird on a Persimmon Branch Showa era (1989-2019), April 1978 ink and colours on paper, 26⅞ x 54¼in (68.3 x 137.8cm) Estimate: $22,000 - 28,000

Minol Araki (1928-2010) Fish and Coral Showa era (1926-1989), 1976 hanging scroll, ink on paper, dated and signed in Japanese 54½ x 13¾in (138.1 x 34.6cm) Estimate: $18,000 - 25,000

Minol Araki (1928-2010) Fish and Coral Showa era (1926-1989), 1976 hanging scroll, ink on paper, dated and signed in Japanese 54½ x 13¾in (138.1 x 34.6cm) Estimate: $18,000 - 25,000

Wherever his design business took him, Araki travelled with paper, brushes, and ink, painting at night dressed only in his underwear. It is a mark of his relative independence from the art market that he had ten solo museum exhibitions during his lifetime, but a much smaller number of commercial shows. It is a tribute to his achievement that his paintings are now owned by virtually every American institution with a substantial collection of Chinese or Japanese art.

Is Araki’s background as a designer apparent in his work as an artist? Perhaps there is something of an overlap between the understatement of his painting and the clean lines of his product styling, a reflection of Loewy’s self-description as an “apostle of simplicity and restraint”. However, this would be simplistic. There is a much older ‘less is more’ aesthetic already apparent in the classic Chinese and Japanese ink paintings that inspired Araki’s work – seven pieces of which will be offered in the Bonhams New York sale of Fine Japanese and Korean Art in September. Another influence was the bold, tortured portraiture of Lithuanian-American artist Ben Shahn (1898-1969), while Araki’s love of foodstuffs as a subject was in part a tribute to Zhang Daqian, an accomplished cook. Zhang also transmitted to Araki his deep appreciation of the centrality of the lotus in traditional Chinese art and religion. He taught Araki how to use gradated ink washes and touches of bright colour to evoke the sultry, humid atmosphere of a temple pond. It resulted in some of Araki’s most complex and compelling works.

the bold, tortured portraiture of Lithuanian-American artist Ben Shahn (1898-1969), while Araki’s love of foodstuffs as a subject was in part a tribute to Zhang Daqian, an accomplished cook. Zhang also transmitted to Araki his deep appreciation of the centrality of the lotus in traditional Chinese art and religion. He taught Araki how to use gradated ink washes and touches of bright colour to evoke the sultry, humid atmosphere of a temple pond. It resulted in some of Araki’s most complex and compelling works.


Joe Earle is a senior consultant, Japanese Art Department, Bonhams.