Sadamasa Motonaga

Untitled, 1981 Oil on canvas painting by Sadamasa Motonaga

1981

Sadamasa Motonaga (1922–2011)
Untitled, 1981

Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 41 × 31.8 cm

Provenance
Mallet Japan Auction, Tokyo, Japan
De Primi Fine Arts, Lugano, Switzerland
Private collection, France
Acquired from the above

Exhibited
De Primi Fine Arts, Lugano, Switzerland, Sadamasa Motonaga: La felicità delle metamorfosi, 18 March – 29 May 2015

Description
Painted in Motonaga’s post-Gutai period, the work condenses his late vocabulary into a single buoyant sign: a vertical, rounded form that flares into two lateral arms, its chroma shifting from ember red to golden yellow against a dusk-toned ground. The softly feathered edges and seamless tonal gradations reflect his airbrush technique, developed after Gutai to exchange raw performative gesture for calibrated atmosphere and light. Here, the biomorphic figure hovers between creature and glyph—a playful, animistic emblem that suggests metamorphosis and levitation. In place of early material experiments with smoke, water, and poured pigment, Motonaga pursues clarity, rhythm, and weightless color, marrying calligraphic economy with pop-bright precision—hallmarks of his mature, post-Gutai language.