Yasuhiro Ogawa

Yasuhiro Ogawa is widely regarded as one of Japan’s leading Realist painters. He portrays contemporary female figures often in a classical context to capture the timeless beauty of women. The women in his paintings appear to be as serene as religious icons, being surrounded by shimmering colors of grey, blue or restrained gold. The beauty of Ogawa’s works owes largely to his original technique derived from the mixed method developed during the Renaissance period, where an initial under-painting in tempera is then over-glazed and detailed in oil paint.

Born in Wakayama in 1953, Ogawa studied at Tokyo University of the Arts. Ogawa acquired the classical mixed method from his training in Italy. In 1982, Ogawa went to Rome to take up an apprenticeship at a restoration studio run by G. Baldi. In Italy, Ogawa was the first foreign artist to win the first prize in the prestigious Fratta Art competition twice in the 1980s. Since 1989, he has returned to Japan and has been working in his hometown.