This work belongs to Nomura Kō’s striking series of collages constructed from discarded newspaper printing flongs—papier-mâché molds used in rotary newspaper presses to cast printing plates. Removed from their original industrial function, these fragile matrices become both image and artifact: a fossilization of a moment in time. The deep vermilion pigment saturating the surface unifies the disparate elements while simultaneously revealing their relief. Perforated industrial textures punctuate the composition, introducing a mechanical rhythm that contrasts with the torn and irregular edges of the paper forms. Materials associated with mass communication and rapid consumption are slowed and recontextualized, what once served the fleeting circulation of daily news becomes a fixed object of memory. Like many works in this series, the piece occupies a threshold between image, object, and imprint. It is at once collage, relief, and record—a material trace of the systems that produce information, reassembled by the artist into a new visual language.The work is 27 x 22 cm (11 x 9 inches) the frame 44.8 x 35.4 x 4.6 (roughly 18 x 14 x 2 inches) and both are in excellent condition. An authentication label is affixed to the reverse by the artist’s wife, Nomura Koyuki.
Nomura Ko (1927–1991) was born in Kyoto and graduated from the Nihonga Department of Kyoto Municipal College of Art in 1948. In 1950 he joined the Pan Real Art Association (until 1965), establishing himself as a significant figure in the postwar avant-garde movement in Japanese-style painting. Initially influenced by Surrealism, he shifted in the later 1950s toward abstraction and collage, employing unconventional materials such as newspaper printing molds, industrial waste, slate, and cement. From the mid 60”s he was driven beyond the framework to be a pioneer in installation exhibition, creating one-time works which allowed the room to be the frame. Through materially driven works and these later three-dimensional and spatial constructions, Nomura fundamentally redefined the physical and conceptual boundaries of Nihonga. His major exhibition history includes the aforementioned Pan Real (1950-1965), the Asahi New Artist Exhibition, the Asahi Selected Exhibition and the Contemporary Japanese Art Exhibition. Trends in Contemporary Painting (1963), and Today’s Artists ’64 (1964). From 1978 onward, he participated almost annually in the Ge Exhibition. In 1986, he was featured in A Section of Postwar Nihonga at Yamaguchi Prefectural Art Museum. A major retrospective, Kyoto Art: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow III – Nomura Ko, was held at Kyoto City Museum of Art in 1989. His work was posthumously included in The Turning Point of Postwar Nihonga at Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts in 1993, confirming his pivotal role in transforming postwar Nihonga. Work by him is held in the collections of The Kyoto National Museum of Modern Art, Fukui Fine Arts Museum, Kariya City Art Museum, Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art, Meguro Museum of Art in Tokyo, Nara Prefectural Museum of Art, Osaka Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka Prefectural 20th Century Art Collection, Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Art, Toyohashi City Museum of Art, Wakayama Museum of Modern Art, Yamaguchi Prefectural Art Museum, Sakuragaoka Museum, The, Kyoto University Art Museum and Kyoto City University of Arts among others.
