What does it mean, not only to be an artist, but to become one? What does the quest for the personal artistic language consist of? The life and art of Japanese artist Teruko Yokoi provides some insight into this process. Teruko Yokoi: Tokyo—New York—Paris—Bern features the artist’s work from the years 1954 to 1964 when stretched between Tokyo, San Francisco, New York, Paris, and Bern. She is experimenting, trying out the new and forging her own language of artistic expression. The various stages and her experiences in these different cities are colorful influences on her body of work. The illustrated catalogue traces the dynamic story of an extremely prolific and vibrant artist whose art has not only testified to her unrelenting creative energy, but – torn between East and West – it mirrored the debates on the modern post-war painting. The book is an important contribution to the literature on great female artists.

TERUKO YOKOI (*1924, Tsushima) can, at the age of 95, look back on an innovative and highly experimental body of work. She studied at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco and later at Art Student League in New York with Julian Levi and celebrated abstract expressionist painter, Hans Hoffman. Her works were included in several exhibitions in Switzerland, the US and Japan. Yokoi lives in Bern, Switzerland.