Kazuo Nakamura: Three Exemplary Works from the 1960s

A founding member of the Toronto-based collective Painters Eleven, Kazuo Nakamura played a pivotal role in the emergence of abstraction in Canada during the 1950s.

While his peers gravitated toward the gestural energy of Abstract Expressionism, Nakamura’s approach was quieter, more meditative. The group was united not by a single style but by a shared commitment to artistic freedom—a principle that allowed Nakamura to pursue his own visual language rooted in science, mathematics, and the natural world. His methodical compositions, often constructed through repetition and limited palettes, reflect a search for what he described as “a fundamental universal pattern in all art and nature.”[1]

Waddington’s is pleased to offer three exemplary works from the 1960s, a period of artistic maturation for Nakamura. Produced shortly after the dissolution of Painters Eleven, as Nakamura embarked on a solo path defined by rigorous formal investigation and quiet spiritual depth.

Green Reflection, 1965 is a quintessential example of Nakamura’s abstracted landscapes. A fractured lake lies beneath a serene treeline, rendered in a restrained palette of green and blue. The landscape is recognizable yet remote—isolated, contemplative, and seemingly suspended in silence. It evokes nature not as scenery, but as pattern, fragment, and memory.

Untitled (Three Plants Reflected), 1964 offers a quiet still life that echoes Nakamura’s interest in reflection and spatial ambiguity. Three potted plants float in an undefined space, tethered neither to interior nor exterior. The repetition of form and subtle distortions suggest both artificiality and organic growth—another meditation on the delicate boundary between nature and abstraction.

In Line Waves, 1962, Nakamura strips painting to its barest essentials. Part of his celebrated Core Structure string painting series, this work features a set of lines created by adhering painted string across the canvas. The resulting composition is both austere and expansive.

[1] Robert Fulford, “The New World of Pattern”, Mayfair Magazine (February 1956), 46.

ABOUT THE AUCTION

Our major fall Fine Art auction includes important works by Group of Seven artists Lawren Harris, A.J. Casson, J.E.H. MacDonald, and A.Y. Jackson, a rare Jock Macdonald abstract, early Kazuo Nakamura paintings, Louis-Philippe Hébert’s major sculpture Algonquins, as well as striking works by Sorel Etrog and Walter Yarwood. International highlights include two exceptionally rare sketches by Sir Edward John Poynter for the Maison Dieu’s stained-glass windows in Dover, Alexander Calder’s Red Serpent, along with works by David Diao, Jules Olitski, and Gene Davis.

Bidding Available November 7 – 20, 2025.

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