Ay-O - Rainbow Klee - 潟にかこまれた町 (Lagoon City)

Modern | Sōsaku Hanga Silkscreen Print

Ay-O’s 1994 silkscreen “Rainbow Klee - 潟にかこまれた町 (Lagoon City)” transforms Paul Klee’s 1932 "Lagunenstadt" into rainbow. Klee’s original, a watercolour on Italian Ingres paper abstracts a lagoon town often read as evoking Venice or Mediterranean lagoon cities during his late Bauhaus years. Ay-O reimagines this vision in saturated rainbow gradations - reds, yellows, greens, and violets shifting across land and water - fusing homage with playful reinvention. 🌈🖼️✨

• Year & Edition: 1994 · Ed. of 120 (69/120) (signed, dated & editioned in pencil).
  
• Medium: Silkscreen. Printed by 助田憲亮 Kenryō Sukeda.
  
• Dimensions: Sheet H: 45.30 cm × W: 30.90 cm.
  
• Condition: Mint. Well stored over the years. Beautiful colour.
  
• Notes: Raisonné No. 744 in Rainbow Rainbow: Ay-O’s Rainbow Prints Catalogue Raisonné 1982-2000 (Abe Publishing, 2004). Paul Klee (1879-1940), Swiss-German painter and Bauhaus master, created "Lagunenstadt" in 1932, blending architectural geometry with landscape atmosphere. Ay-O’s rainbow reinterpretation situates Japanese printmaking within a dialogue with European modernism, transforming muted pastels into radiant colour bands.

About the Artist

Ay-O (born 1931) is a seminal figure in postwar Japanese avant-garde art, celebrated for his immersive “Rainbow” series of vibrant paintings, silkscreens and installations. Early influences included the Demokrato Artist Association and the Society for Creative Art Education, which fostered his experimental spirit. In the 1960s he joined George Maciunas’s Fluxus movement, collaborating with Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik and Claes Oldenburg on boundary-pushing performances. Ay-O’s playful, multi-sensory use of gradated colour has earned him international acclaim, with major exhibitions at the National Museum of Asian Art (Washington, D.C.) and Kunsthal Aarhus, and works held in the British Museum, MoMA (New York) and the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. [ ← View All Works by Ay-O]