Roy Kiyooka (1926-1994). Courtesy Herringer Kiss Gallery.
Roy Kenzie Kiyooka, OC (January 18, 1926 - January 4, 1994) was a Canadian poet, and an influential arts teacher, painter, photographer, and multi-media artist of national and international acclaim.
Life[]
A Nisei or 2nd generation Japanese Canadian, Kiyooka was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan and raised in Calgary, Alberta. His parents were Harry Shigekiyo Kiyooka and Mary Kiyoshi Kiyooka. Her samurai father was the, still famous, 17th head of the Muso Jikiden Eishin-ryu school of swordmanship. Roy Kiyooka's brother, Harry Mitsuo Kiyooka, became an abstract painter, a professor of art, and sometimes curator of his brother's work. Harry Kiyoka taught art at the University of Alberta at Calgary (now the University of Calgary, from 1961 to 1988.
In 1942, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the family was uprooted and moved into rural Alberta. Roy Kiyooka did not finish high school.
From 1946 to 1949 he studied with Jock Macdonald and Illingworth Holey Kerr at the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art. With a scholarship he was able in 1955 to go to Mexico for eight months to study under James Pinto at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende.
In 1956 he began teaching at the Regina College School of Art. Regina was a center for his style of painting,. At the time Kiyooka was very impressed with Clement Greenberg's ideas. In the summers from 1957 to 1959 he took part in the Emma Lake Artists' Workshops of the University of Saskatchewan, and there worked there with Will Barnet and Barnett Newman.
Kiyooka left for Vancouver in 1959. From 1960 to 1964 he was at the Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr University of Art and Design), and from 1965 to 1970 at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University) in Montreal. In 1971/72 he taught at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, and from 1973 to 1991 at the Fine Arts Department of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
At the end of the 1960's Kiyooka had lost faith in modernism and stopped painting. He began to use performance, film and music. He also became involved in poetry and photography. But in the early 1970's he also produced 2 series of sculptures: the StoneDGloves: Alms for Soft Palms, shown at the National Gallery in Ottawa; and the 16 Cedar Laminated Sculpture series, shown alongside the Ottoman/Court Suite of silk-screen prints, at the Bau Xi Gallery in Vancouver in May, 1971.
His artwork is represented by the Catriona Jeffries Gallery in Vancouver, Canada.
Recognition[]
"Reed the life and works of Roy Kiyooka" Trailer
Kiyooka was made a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1965. In the same year he represented Canada at the Eighth Sao Paulo Biennial in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and won a Silver Medal. In 1975 the Vancouver Art Gallery organized a 25-year retrospective of his work.
In 1978 he was named an Officer of the Order of Canada.
He is the subject of a 90-minute documentary, Reed: The life and works of Roy Kiyooka (2012), produced and directed by his daughter, Fumiko Kiyooka.[1]
Publications[]
Poetry[]
- Kyoto Airs. Vancouver: Periwinkle Press, 1964.
- Nevertheless These Eyes. Toronto: Coach House, 1967.
- StoneDGloves (poems & photos). Toronto: Coach House, [1971?]
- The Fountainebleau Dream Machine: 18 frames from a book of rhetorick. Toronto: Coach House, 1977.
- Pear Tree Pomes (illustrated by David Bolduc). Toronto: Coach House, 1987.
- Pacific Windows: Collected poems (edited by Roy Miki). Burnaby, BC: Talonbooks, 1997.
- The Artist and the Moose: A fable of forget (edited by Roy Miki). Burnaby, BC: Linebooks, 2009.
Non-fiction[]
- Mothertalk: The life stories of Mary Kiyoshi Kiyooka (interviews by Roy Kiyooka; edited by Daphne Marlatt). Edmonton, AB: NeWest Press, 1997.
Letters[]
- Transcanada Letters. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 1975
- (edited by Smaro Kambourelli). Edmonton, AB: NeWest Press, 2005.
- Pacific Rim Letters (edited by Smaro Kambourelli). Edmonton, AB: NeWest Press, 1995.
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[2]
See also[]
References[]
- Roy K. Kiyooka: 25 years. Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery, 1975.
- Kent Lewis: "Kiyooka, Roy Kenzie", in: William H. New (editor): The Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada (edited by W.H. New). Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002.
- All Amazed: For Roy Kyooka (edited by John O'Brian, Naomi Sawada, & Scott Watson). Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press / Belkin Gallery, 2002.
Notes[]
- ↑ REED: The Life and Works of Roy Kiyooka, Moving Images Distribution. Web, Apr. 16, 2017.
- ↑ Search results = au:Roy Kiyooka, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Oct. 25, 2014.
External links[]
- Audio / video
- Books
- Roy Kiyooka at Amazon.com
- About
- Roy Kiyooka at The Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan
- Roy Kenzie Kiyooka in The Canadian Encyclopedia
- Roy Kenzie Kiyooka at ABC Bookworld
- Roy Kiyooka at Ruins in Process: Vancouver art in the sixties
- Remembering Roy Kiyooka at Canadian Nikkei
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