During a recent morning stroll through her new solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Japanese artist Kunié Sugiura paused in front of a wall-size photo of herself that was taken 53 years ago in a New York gallery.
Kunié Sugiura stands in front of her work “Vertebrae” at SFMOMA in San Francisco on April 22. Her first U.S. museum survey, “Kunié Sugiura: Photopainting,” is at the museum until Sep. 14. Her work combines photography with painting, sculpture and X-ray images and reflects her bicultural identity. Tâm Vu/For the S.F. Chronicle
“I don’t even know who she is,” said the 82-year-old photographer with a smile, looking bemused at the image of her younger self.
In the 1972 photo, Sugiura stands in front of one of her early photo canvases, one similar to those on view in the SFMOMA survey exhibition “Kunié Sugiura: Photopainting.” It’s a semiabstract photograph of a detail from nature, maybe beach sand, ash or a Central Park stone, which she blew up and then printed by hand on photosensitized canvas, applying graphite to accentuate contrast.
The result, like much of Sugiura’s work from the 1970s on, looks surprisingly contemporary. She started creating hybrid work that played with the boundaries between photography and painting years before it was popular, and yet Sugiura has only recently received the attention from museums and collectors that she deserves.
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June 8, 2025
