Isami Doi

Painting, Visual Artist

1903 –

 Credit »
13

Who is Isami Doi?

Isami Doi was an American printmaker and painter. He was born on the island of Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands in 1903. He moved with his family to the island of Kauai, and he thereafter considered Kalaheo, Kauai his home.

Doi studied for two years at the University of Hawaii, went on to Columbia University for five years, and then continued his studies for a year in Paris. He stayed in New York until 1938, when he returned to the Hawaiian Islands. Doi taught printmaking, drawing, and metal work, as well as designing jewelry for the S. and S. Gumps store, a San Francisco firm that had opened a store in Honolulu in 1929, and later for Mings jewelers.

His first solo show at the Honolulu Museum of Art took place in April 1929, and featured painted landscapes of the mountains of Kauai as well as fifteen prints. His early works are painted in muted duns and browns, and have a discreet erotic quality. Mid-way in his career, he included symbols inherited from Greece and Rome, such as Centaurs, broken columns, and sphinxes. As his spirituality deepened, his works became closer to pure abstraction, with orange and vermilion signifying flames and light. A simplified Buddha shape is Dois hieroglyph for meditation. In his last works in the 1960s, he set aside all symbols, returning to painting the cliffs of Kauai, which he had come to view as spiritual entities. Early Spring, in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art, is an example of these later abstract paintings. Doi died in Kalaheo, Hawaii in 1965.

We need you!

Help us build the largest biographies collection on the web!

Born
1903
Oahu
Nationality
  • United States of America
Education
  • Columbia University
  • University of Hawaiʻi

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

Citation

Use the citation below to add to a bibliography:

Style:MLAChicagoAPA

"Isami Doi." Biographies.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.biographies.net/people/en/isami_doi>.

Discuss this Isami Doi biography with the community:

0 Comments

    Browse Biographies.net