Keiko Minami Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1911 - d. 2004

Keiko Minami, (Minami Keiko, 12 February 1911 – 1 December 2004) was a Japanese artist, aquatint engraver, and poet.

Keiko Minami was born in the Imizu District of Toyama Prefecture in 1911. She was orphaned at a young age and expressed an early interest in the arts. She painted and wrote poetry in high school, and studied the art of children's stories under the Japanese novelist and poet Sakae Tsuboi. She attended the School of Fine Arts Tokyo, now called the Tokyo University of the Arts, from 1927 until 1929. Her artistic style was influenced by such artists as Paul Klee, Yozo Hamaguchi, Johnny Friedlaender, Yoshio Mori, and Japanese print artists. After the war, Minami moved to Tokyo to create children's books, and it was there that she met her future husband, the mezzotint artist Yozo Hamaguchi.[2] Minami and Hamaguchi moved to Paris in late 1953 where Minami began studying under Johnny Friedlaender, a pioneer in aquatint etching.[3] Soon after beginning her study of aquatint etching under Friedlaender, Minami sold one of her early works to the city of Paris.[4] In the late 1950s, Minami's works were reproduced and sold as greeting cards by both the Museum of Modern Art and UNICEF.[5] In 1959 she was named as an official artist of the United Nations. At this time Minami entered into an exclusive contract with German art dealer Heinz Berggruen. She moved to San Francisco with her husband in 1982 and eventually, in 1996, after forty years abroad, returned to Japan where she died in 2004.