Yoshio Sekine was born in Wakayama Prefecture in 1922. In 1948, he joined the Jiyu Bijutsu Kyokai (Free Art Association) and became acquainted with avant-garde art. In 1954, he joined Yoshihara and other artists to form the Gutai Art Association in Kansai and participated in many exhibitions and art shows with them. In 1959, Sekine left the Gutai Art Association and relocated to Tokyo; after that, he exhibited a work depicting a soroban (Japanese abacus), a significant motif for him, at the 15th Yomiuri Independents Exhibition in 1963. Sekine attracted attention and acclaim for his unique style of portraying the soroban, a daily commodity, as a symbol that expresses its functional essence and creates abstract images that suggest a “hybrid child of figuration and abstraction.” He continued to produce various compositions and colors, centering on the series “Soroban,” “Gate,” “Freight Car,” and “Mt. Fuji” for the next few decades. He received the Mainichi Newspaper Award (1952) and the 2nd Nagaoka Museum of Contemporary Art Award (1965). His works are in the collections of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; the British Museum, London; the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, among others.
