Kyushu-ha Memorandum
Jutaro Yamauchi

Introduction
It has been 41 years since Kyushu-ha was formed, and about 30 years have alreadypassed since its demise. In the fall of 1988, the Fukuoka City Museum of Art held the firstlarge-scale "Kyushu-ha" exhibition, clearly presenting Kyushu-ha's activities, which werebecoming legendary, through its works and miracles. The Kyushu-ha movement has
already been reviewed by people inside and outside of Kyushu-ha, and we hope that thediscovery of new materials and testimonies from inside and outside of Kyushu-ha willcontinue to reveal the full picture of this first avant-garde art movement in Kyushu.
I would like to investigate and record some facts related to Kyushu-ha, but due to my own
personal matters, I will leave that for another time. In this article, I would like to fulfill myresponsibility by describing what I have been wondering about Kyushu-Ha and what I havelearned recently.
1 Ariake Boat
Although the old Momochi Beach has now been transformed into an artificial beach, someof you may remember that dozens of beach houses used to line the sandy beach. Thesebeach houses were facilities that served as both changing rooms and rest areas forbathers.
One of these beach houses was the Ariake Boat. It is believed that most of the works byKyushu-ha members exhibited at the Yomiuri Independents Exhibition in 1958, the year
after Kyushu-ha was formed, were created here. In early summer of last year, I met again
for the first time in about 40 years with Mr. Minoru Kuwatori, one of the youngest membersof Kyushu-ha in its early days, and we renewed our old friendship. His father used to run
Ariake Boat. At that time, he was running a boat rental business and opened a beachhouse only during the annual summer bathing season. Therefore, the beach house wasclosed every year from autumn to June of the following year.
When I asked Mr. Minoru Kuwatori how he came to rent the place as a studio for Kyushuha members to create their works, he said he did not remember the circumstances. This is
only a guess, but it is likely that one of the members who learned at a Kyushu-ha meetingthat Kuwatori's father ran a beach house, which was not used except during the summer,
and who thought it would be a good place to work, borrowed it after consulting his father,
Jusaburo Kuwatori, through Mr. Minoru. According to Mr. Minoru, since most of themembers were working on large works, one house of "Ariake Boat" was not enough, andthey also rented 1.2 houses in the neighborhood, which was also thanks to the efforts ofMr. Minoru's father.
It is immeasurable how much the availability of a large space as a production site was apowerful backup for Kyushu-ha's early efforts to create large-scale works, collaborate onproductions, and speed up the production process. On a personal note, my work for theYomiuri Andapandan, the 3000F "Orient," which was created by joining coffee jute bags,
would not have been possible without the use of this platform space as a production site.
It is believed that the owner of the property, Jusaburo Kuwatori, has not paid a single yen inrent, as far as the author knows. He passed away 30 years ago. I would like to offer mydeepest gratitude to Jusaburo Kuwatori in heaven and pray for his soul rest in peace.

2 Youngest Members
After 41 years since its establishment, eight members of Kyushu-ha have already passed
away, and some of the current members are getting older, and some have become very ill. I
myself turned 69 years old this year. There are some members who are still missing, and I
am concerned about them.
There were three high school students at Kyushu-ha. They are Mr. Minoru Kuwatori andMs. Yoko Sugawara and Ms. Mitsuko Ono. In writing this article, I asked Mr. Huwatori whyhe joined Kyushu-ha and what grade he was in at the time. Mr. Kuwatori was accepted tothe Fukuoka Prefectural Exhibition for the first time when he was in his third year atMomochi Junior High School, and again in his first year at Higashi Fukuoka High School. At
that time, Mr. Takami Sakurai recommended him to join Kyushu-Ha, and he joined. At thesame time, Toshiko Ohgami, an art teacher at Momochi Junior High School, also joined
Kyushu-Ha.
Mr. Oogami's father was a painter, Mr. Makoto Hirashima, a friend of Shigeru Aoki, ateacher at Ogi Junior High School in Saga Prefecture, and a supporter of Aoki's. Mrs.

Oogami once told me that her sister was a very beautiful woman, and that she and Aoki
had a chance to get married, but it did not work out because Aoki died of tuberculosis.
Ms. Sugawara and Ms. Ono were students at Fukuoka Chuo High School at the time, but I
do not remember what grade they were in. They may have left Kyushu-ha upon graduationfrom high school. When I was in Paris in 1962 or 1963, I heard after I returned to Japanthat Ms. Sugawara came to visit me at my home with a foreigner. I do not know what
happened to either of them after that, but I am curious to know what kind of progress they
have made.

3 Mamoru Matano's Philosophy
When considering Kyushu-ha's activities as an avant-garde art movement, Mr. Mamoru
Matano's presence is extremely important. Without Mr. Matano, Kyushu-ha would havetaken a different path.

Mr. Matano was originally a poet, and had been friends with Yutaka Maruyama, Hitoshi
Anzai, and Utaroh Noda, poets from Kurume, his hometown, since he was young, and had
written modern poems early on. He is a poet in the intellectual lyric school of poets such as
Yutaka Maruyama. After the war, he joined the Nishinippon Shimbun, and a chanceencounter with Takami Sakurai, who worked at the same place, had a great influence on
the Kyushu-Ha movement. It was a very fortunate encounter. In my article "Personal Notesof Kyushu-ha" (published in the literary magazine "Umi" No. 6), which I wrote shortly afterthe "Kyushu-ha Exhibition" at the Fukuoka City Museum of Art in 1988, I listed Mr. Matano'sachievements in Kyushu-ha: naming Kyushu-ha, publishing the journal "Kyushu-ha,"
drafting the declaration, establishing the steering committee, teaching contemporary
thought, and proposing study groups among the members.
Several years ago, Mrs. Matano called an old acquaintance of hers, the poet Keiji Hada, toask if she could sell him her husband's collection of books. So I once visited her home. Thelibrary contained not only literature and art books, but also a wide range of books on
philosophy and thought, and I learned anew that Mr. Matano was an excellent reader. At
that time, I wanted to find a clue to the formation of the Kyushu-ha movement by cataloging
the collection of Mr. Matano, who was one of the core ideologues of the Kyushu-ha
movement, and to explore how this was related to the Kyushu-ha movement. Later, when I
told this to a young writer who was interested in Kyushu-Ha, he said he wanted to catalog
the exhibition himself, and I was happy to hear that. However, for whatever reason, it nevermaterialized.

According to some reports, Mrs. Matano entered a facility specializing in

the elderly. I do not know what happened to Matano's collection of books, but it would be apity if they were lost.
Mr. Matano left behind a collection of poems titled "Dreaming and Wandering" before hisdeath, but it is difficult to get a sense of his thought process from this collection alone.
During his Kyushu-ha days, Mr. Matano often talked about the poet Rilke and wasinterested in Sartre's existentialism. I have heard that he became a Catholic in his lateryears. According to his wife, he took a trip to China in his later years. Or was it a trip toadmire Chinese culture, as he was a skilled calligrapher and had a deep knowledge ofcalligraphy?
During his time at Kyushu-ha, Mr. Matano once told me that he would like to write a novel"Kyushu-ha" and that the main character would be Takami Sakurai. More than ten years
ago, I wrote to him once or twice to ask him to write a novel "Kyushu-ha," but did notreceive a reply. Although I assume that there are certain intervening circumstances, I stillwish that he had written it as his life's work.

4 The House of Blue
Although it belongs to the prehistory of the Kyushu-Ha, the existence of "The House ofBlue" may have served as a nucleus for the formation of the pre-Kyushu-Ha. “The House ofBlue" was located behind Shintencho in Tenjin, Fukuoka City. It was a handmade wooden
atelier. It was originally built as a studio for the production of works to be exhibited at theNika Exhibition by young exhibitors living in Fukuoka City, including Yohji Kuroki, Yasutaka
Nakagawa, Kenichiro Terada, and Toku Yonekura. I do not know how or why, but Shin
Kinoshita, who was exhibiting at the Dokuritsu Exhibition at the time, took over the studioand began to live there either to work or to bring in a bed.
In 1953/4, I was a student at Seinan Gakuin University. One evening, I was passing by arestaurant in the back of Shintencho when Mr. Kenichiro Terada stopped me in the bar andintroduced me to Mr. Shin Kinoshita. I believe that Mr. Kinoshita was already living in "TheHouse of Blue" at that time. After that, I began to visit "The House of Blue" often, and I
remember that there were times when I visited there day after day.

Although Mr. Kinoshita had been suspended for nonpayment of electric light charges, hehad continued to work by candlelight. At that time, he was painting in a cubist style withbrown as the main tone. In 1957, with the formation of Kyushu-Ha, I joined "The House ofBlue. I joined up with Kuroki, Terada, and Yonekura of Nika and Kinoshita of Independence,and we worked together.
It is said that the construction of "The House of Blue" was made possible by the efforts ofToshiko Yasukawa, the director of the adjacent Yasukawa College of Fashion. I asked Mr.
Une Yasukawa, the sculptor and brother of the Director, and Mr. Masami Yasukawa, theDirector's son, about this matter, and they told me that "The House of Blue" was originallycity-owned land, but the Director rented it after negotiations with the city.
The House of Blue" was built directly behind the Oshima Sake Brewery on the back streetof Shintencho, through the narrow alley between the Oshima Sake Brewery and the WachiDental Clinic. Eventually, the Oshima liquor store, where Kinoshita lived at the time, waspurchased by the city and he was forced to move out. Although there were somecircumstances, Mr. Kinoshita came to live in a house in Higashino, at the exit of Yakuin. In
the early days of Kyushu-Ha, meetings were held there.

I do not know exactly when "The House of Blue" was built and when it was torn
down. I have heard that Mr. Yasutaka Nakagawa, who is currently the chairmanof the Yuho-kai Medical Foundation in Ureshino-cho, Saga Prefecture, is wellversed in the history of the construction of "The House of Blue," but I have not
had an opportunity to hear his story. Mr. Nakagawa is said to have establisheda painting therapy for the mentally handicapped and is highly regarded.
The images in the text have nothing to do with the text.