Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 2: Modern Era (1850–1949)

1949

Yomiuri Indépendant Begins

Event · Japan

The 1926 Okada Shin'ichirō building of the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in Ueno — the hall that housed the Yomiuri Indépendant from 1949 until the exhibition ended in 1963; the building was demolished in 1977.
The 1926 Okada Shin'ichirō building of the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in Ueno — the hall that housed the Yomiuri Indépendant from 1949 until the exhibition ended in 1963; the building was demolished in 1977. Tokyo Prefectural (later Metropolitan) Art Museum, Ueno, designed by Okada Shin'ichirō, built 1926. From Meiji Taishō kenchiku shashin shūran (明治大正建築写真聚覧) (Architectural Institute of Japan, 1936); National Diet Library Digital Collections, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

More commonly referred to as Yomiuri Anpan, the annual non-juried exhibition played a crucial role in the birth of Japanese postwar avant-garde art. Famously democratizing, anyone could show their work by paying the fee in an attempt to promote freedom of expression and thought. Supervised by Japanese Surrealist icon Shuzo Takiguchi, instrumental in the formation of Jikken Kobo, Yomiuri Anpan offered an ideal space for independent artists and the most experimental works (even judged by today’s standards).

Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random, fact-checked September 2026.

Sources

People

Shuzo Takiguchi

Movements

Surrealism

Filed under

Ideas
access, avant garde, democratization, experimentation, Surrealism
People
Shuzo Takiguchi
Organisations
Jikken Kobo, Yomiuri Indépendant
Places
Japan

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