Kumi Sugai: Colors and Shapes Between Kobe and Paris

I discovered the work of Kumi Sugai in a very ordinary way.

I was browsing serigraph prints on Mercari. Among dozens of listings, one image immediately caught my attention. A bold composition made of geometric shapes, saturated colors, and genius composition. The shapes were simple yet extremely precise, arranged with the kind of balance that makes you stop scrolling.

The name attached to the print was Kumi Sugai.

Curious, I started looking into his work. That is when I learned that he was born and raised in Kobe, the city where I now live, before moving to Paris in the early 1950s.

For me the detail was striking. I was born in Paris, grew up in France and later settled in Kobe. Discovering an artist whose life unfolded between these same two places, decades earlier, made the encounter feel oddly close.

Yet the real fascination came from the work itself.

Before becoming known for his abstract paintings, Sugai worked as a commercial illustrator in Japan, partly for Hankyu Railway, and has an abstract painter, but with a more organic approach.

After arriving in Paris in 1952, his work began to change. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, his paintings gradually shifted toward graphic compositions. He started exploring a vocabulary of geometric shapes and flat color.

Circles, arcs, Curves, bars, and bands became recurring elements.

The compositions feel extremely controlled. Each shape occupies its place with precision. The paintings often rely on a limited number of elements, yet they carry a strong visual presence.

For someone working in graphic design, the resonance is immediate. Sugai’s paintings sometimes feel closer to visual systems than to traditional painting. I was in absolute love…

Roads, Movement, and Speed

A recurring theme in Sugai’s work is movement. Many paintings evoke the visual language of roads, speed and modern infrastructure. Curves resemble turns in a road. Parallel bands recall traffic markings. Circles suggest road signs or mechanical parts. The compositions seem organized around direction and motion.

Sugai had a strong interest in automobiles and racing culture, and that fascination gradually filtered into his paintings. But the reference never becomes literal. It remains subtle. What remains on the canvas are signs of movement: direction, rhythm, acceleration.

A Painter With a Graphic Mindset

Sugai’s paintings often feel surprisingly close to graphic design. The colors are flat and bold. The shapes are reduced to their essential form. Large areas of the canvas are occupied by single elements with strong visual weight.

This reduction creates immediate impact. A single curve can structure the entire composition. A circle placed at the right point suddenly activates the whole surface. The paintings function almost like visual symbols. That quality may explain why his work still feels contemporary today. The visual language resonates with signage, branding, and modern graphic systems.

A Quiet Discovery

Sugai spent most of his life in Paris and developed an international career during the decades following the war. His work circulated widely in galleries and exhibitions during that time.

Yet his name is not always the first to appear when discussing Japanese postwar abstraction.

Encountering his work today feels surprisingly fresh. For me, the discovery started with a single serigraph found online. And sometimes that is how the most memorable discoveries happen. A simple image appears while browsing, and suddenly an entire world unfolds behind it.