Teruko Yokoi

The work of Japanese-Swiss painter Teruko Yokoi (1924–2020) is characterized by unflagging creative energy and constant evolution. This book takes an in-depth look at her painting methods and her own vocabulary of abstraction, which was formulated over the course of a long artistic career. Art historian Kuniko Satonobu Spirig, who is also of Japanese origin, analyzes and explains cultural and biographical relations in Yokoi's art as well as the influences of Abstract Expressionism on her painting technique.

Raised in Japan, in the city Tsushima, Yokoi moved to Tokyo in 1949, where she attended the private Joshibi University of Art and Design (Joshibijutsu Daigaku). In 1954, she went to the United States, where she completed her education at the San Francisco Art Institute and with painters Hans Hofmann and Julian E. Levi in New York. There she met artists such as Sam Francis—whom she married in 1959—, Mark Rothko, and Kenzo Okada. In this environment, she drew new energy and began to develop her own style of abstraction and to invent her own idiom. In 1962, she moved to Switzerland, where she lived and worked tirelessly in the city of Bern until her death.