RAY YOSHIDA American, 1930-2009

Ray Yoshida was born in Hawaii in 1930 and, after finishing his studies in Hawaii, enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and subsequently Syracuse University, New York in 1958. The following year Yoshida returned to SAIC where he taught (and exerted a profound influence upon) Jim Nutt, Christina Ramberg, Roger Brown, and Robert Storr among many others. Though he did not participate in the Hairy Who, False Image, or Non-Plussed Some exhibitions at the Hyde Park Art Center, Yoshida played a central role in the instruction of the SAIC students and alumni whose works were exhibited in those exhibitions. Yoshida acted as both an advisor and a peer of his students in their formative years in the 1960s. He was well known for his perceptiveness and for having an effective voice. 

 Yoshida was known for both his paintings and his signature “comic collages.” Drawing on objects from his vast personal collection of vernacular imagery, tattoo flash sheets, commercial design, and art, his paintings featured hard-edged abstract forms arranged categorically or bodies and figures composed of aggregate shapes and colors. In the 1970s, he began cutting up comic strips, categorizing them by shapes and colors and creating collages and groupings. All of his work relied on his deep relationship with the collection of art he lived with, and constantly rearranged, in his apartment.

In 1998, a major retrospective of the artist's work was shown at The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, which then traveled to The Chicago Cultural Center and the Madison Art Center. After the artist's death in 2009, the retrospective, Touch and Go: Ray Yoshida and His Spheres of Influence was exhibited at the SAIC's Sullivan Galleries. His works are included in the permanent collections of The Art Institute Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, Chicago.