4 5 Kazuo Nakamura Inner Structure No. 3, 1959 Oil on Canvas 48 x 36 in. (123 x 92 cm) Signed, dated Provenance: Issacs Gallery Toronto Private Collection Toronto In 1953, at age 27, Kazuo Nakamura came into his own with a unique and remarkable vision for painting and painting space, figuratively and literally. Although a member of Painters Eleven (formed in 1953), his work sat beyond the ambitions of the group. A key body of Nakamura’s maturing 1950s work is characterized by blue grounds with “abstract” compositions of abbreviated darker blue-strokes; works that continued periodically for nine years until circa 1962. Many of these paintings shared the term “inner” for titling, such as Inner View (1953) and Inner Expansion (1960). Inner Structure No.3 is the largest of these works, which speaks to the incremental ambition. Other blue-on-blue works have title variations such as Structural Movement (1956). Ever the philosophical artist Nakamura’s “inner” refers to patterns and structures in nature that are beyond the visible eye, but at the same time being aware that we are part of nature. – Dr. Ihor Holubizky Dr. Ihor Holubizky is an art historian and was the lead curator of the 2001 Kazuo Nakamura retrospective for The Robert McLaughlin Gallery.