Kazuo Shiraga (1924-2008) is known as one of the core members of the Gutai Art Association (Gutai), one of the most important avant-garde art groups in postwar Japan. His unique abstract painting style is highly regarded internationally.
　After graduating from Kyoto Municipal College of Fine Arts (now Kyoto City University of Arts) in 1948 with a degree in Japanese painting, Shiraga switched to Western-style painting and began to search for his own expression. In the early 1950s, he began experimenting with painting with his fists, fingers, and fingernails instead of using a paintbrush, and continued to pursue physical expression through "foot painting," in which he held onto a rope suspended from the ceiling and painted with his feet on a canvas stretched on the floor.
　The museum has paid attention to the activities of the Gutai Art Association from early on, and has continued to collect their works since the 1980s, often introducing them as features in collection exhibitions.
　This exhibition brings together Shiraga's early figurative works and abstract works with action paintings from the collection of his hometown, Amagasaki City, Hyogo Prefecture. In addition, works by Kazuo Shiraga and other Gutai members from the museum's collection will also be introduced.