Artists Tadaaki Kuwayama (1932, Nagoya, Japan– 2023, New York) and Rakuko Naito (b. 1937, Tokyo) lived and worked alongside one another in New York until Kuwayama’s passing. The artists exhibited together at venues including Whitestone Gallery, Taipei (2019) and Borzo Gallery, Amsterdam (2018). Kuwayama and Naito were both trained in the Japanese tradition of figurative painting, or Nihonga, but found its parameters restrictive. They expatriated to New York in the 1950s, developing their respective visual signatures in conversation with American Postwar abstraction.

Tadaaki Kuwayama leaves behind an oeuvre comprising monochromatic, geometric abstraction. The painter was a pioneer in American Minimalism, with Donald Judd among his early supporters. Later, Kuwayama would incorporate industrial production to further reduce the human trace in his artworks, using metallic and reflective materials to lend his work a phenomenological dimension. Kuwayama’s work is included in the collections of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; the Nationalgalerie, Berlin; The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; The National Museum of Art, Osaka; and others.

Rakuko Naito began her career producing geometric abstraction aligned with the Op Art genre. Her practice has since evolved into meticulous paper assemblage, which extend Japanese traditional paper making into languages of American non-representational painting and sculpture. Naito’s work is in the public collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Buenos Aires; Voorlinden Museum, Wassenaar, Netherlands; and others.

The Tadaaki Kuwayama and Rakuko Naito Pavilion is designed by their daughter, Maki Kuwayama and her firm unit a, freie architekten bda—making this Pavilion a true family legacy project. In the spectrum of design and construction, unit a is experienced in all phases from inception to execution. unit a takes a holistic approach to ensure seamless continuity. Their experience, expertise and personal attention results in the highest level of professional service and design.