About the artist:

Iida Yoshikuni (Jap 飯 田 善 国;. Born July 10, 1923 in Ashikaga - 19 April 2006 Matsumoto) was a Japanese painter and sculptor. Iida was married to the Austrian Katharina Breitl from the house of the poet Richard Breitl. Yoshikuni Iida was born in 1923 in Ashikaga, Tochigi Prefecture. He studied art history at the prestigious private Keio University in Tokyo and graduated in 1949. He then studied oil painting at the also prestigious Tokyo University of the Arts. After his graduation in 1953, Iida celebrated his first exhibition at the gallery Maruzen in Tokyo. 1956 traveled Iida to Europe, where he worked in Rome, Vienna and West Berlin. He had a close friendship with the Frankfurter sculptor Hans Steinbrenner. During his stay in Europe Iida moved from painting to visual arts. In 1966 he was in that division Guest of the Artists. In 1968 he returned via Canada and the US back to Japan, where he had become one of the most important sculptors of abstract art during his stay abroad. It was followed by numerous exhibitions in Japan and abroad, including London, New York and Frankfurt. 1983 Yoshikuni Iida Professor of Architecture at Hosei University in Tokyo. Yoshikuni Iida died in 2006 of a heart attack during a trip to Matsumoto.