Third from the Left

Ted Naomi Kurahara

The influence of America’s mid-century exploration of Modernism are apparent in Ted Kurahara’s “Third from the Left,” a Cubist-abstract composition that suggests a figure seen from several angles as much as it does a non-representational experiment in textures. In 1951 Kurahara had been discharged from the U.S. military just four years prior, and he was enrolled in the MFA program at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois.

The influence of Atelier 17’s experimental printmaking, which had made its mark in New York during the war, was felt across the Midwest and printmakers such as Mauricio Lasansky helped to re-establish printmaking as a true fine art unto itself. No doubt Kurahara, who himself would go on to study and teach art alongside Lasansky at Iowa State in just a few years, felt the pull, and in “Third from the Left” the hallmarks of the rising star of American Modernism are seen in its energetic, though studied, use of line and color, texture and movement. As is the case with many Lasansky students the artist left his partial inked fingerprint in the lower margin during the printing, forensic authenticity.

Ted Naomi Kurahara was born in Seattle, Washington, on July 16, 1925. As a child, he excelled in art and was encouraged by his primary school teachers to pursue art-related projects, often allowing him to create maps and posters for use in the classroom in lieu of other assignments. When World War II commenced and Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941, Kurahara's family, as well as other Japanese families in what was then known as the "international district," was soon sent to the Minidoka internment camp in Idaho, forcing his family to abandon the apartment complex they owned and operated.

In early 1944 at the age of seventeen Kurahara was drafted into the U.S. army. After training in Florida and Mississippi he was sent to Europe, fighting in France and Italy in the 442nd Japanese American Battalion, becoming a decorated staff sargeant. By the time he was shipped back to the United States his family had been allowed to relocate, and his parents had followed their eldest son to St. Louis where he attended medical school. The military sent Kurahara to a base near St. Louis and, after being discharged in 1947, he enrolled in Washington University's arts program.

After graduating with a BA in fine arts, he relocated to Peoria, Illinois, where he attended Bradley University and recieved his MFA. Following this, Kurahara began a teaching career, first at the Springfield Art Association in Springfield, IL, from 1953 to 1956, and then the University of Iowa. In 1958, he was awarded a medal for his work at the Art in America "New Talent in the U.S.A." invitational exhibition. In the late 1950s, a trip to New York to visit friends rekindled Kurahara's desire to more seriously pursue his own fine art career and he and his wife, artist Joan Vennum, moved with their family to Brooklyn in the fall of 1959. There, he began to exhibit more frequently and he had shows in New York and throughout the U.S. Among his close professional associations was the Mi Chou Gallery, one of the first major Asian art institutions on the East Coast, with whom he exhibited frequiently. He continued to teach part time for extra income, including at Pratt University, New York University, and Brooklyn College; he also took a job as an art consultant for the city of Manhattan.