The Fawn, Bronze By Kenjiro Shirai, Circa 1950-60 #633

Bronze with dark brown patina - fixed on a wooden base. uusres on the base, small oxidations - signed on the terrace. Kenjiro Shirai was a Japanese sculptor; 1911-2001 From 1932, he resided at the Atelier Village of "little Montparnasse" near Nagasaki (Toshima). There were about sixty studio houses. This district flourished on former wasteland. The nickname of Montparnasse is linked to a poet who published in a local newspaper "Ikebukuro Montparnasse"; because at that time French art was the European artistic reference. In 1938, the national mobilization law was promulgated. The government urged the population to engage in a "total war". Works other than those glorifying war were censored. The Nagasaki Atelier Village remains an "art colony" far from political and social pressure. Kenjiro Shirai describes this place as "the best space I could have asked for". Devastated in 1944 by bombings, the Petit Montparnasse was reborn after the war, but Shirai then lived in a suburb of Tokyo. His art evolved from an art deco aesthetic to a geometric abstraction from the 1960s. He was a member of the Association of Movement Arts (Kodo Bijutsu Kai). In 1995 he was part of the retrospective on the Petit Montparnasse.