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Isao Mizutani
Prey No. 5
1962
Pigments on paper (nikawa-e)
73 × 91 cm, framed
Prey No. 5 was created in 1962, at a pivotal moment in Isao Mizutani’s practice and Japan’s postwar avant-garde. From 1959 to 1963, Mizutani participated in the Yomiuri Independent Exhibition, a key platform for experimental art in Japan. During this period, he developed his distinctive nikawa-e (膠絵) approach, challenging conventional ideas of Japanese-style painting while extending his practice into performance and stage design.
1962 was also a period of increasing international visibility for Mizutani. Following his participation in the Pittsburgh International at the Carnegie Institute in 1961, his work began to appear in exhibitions outside Japan.
In Prey No. 5, the body is not presented as a complete figure. Eyes, teeth and organic forms appear as fragments within a densely worked surface, emerging through rough lines and layers of red, black and pale pigment.
This visual language closely parallels Mizutani’s paintings of the early 1960s. Writing on Woman No. 6 (1963), the Ishii Collection at the University of Tsukuba describes how Mizutani worked across the surface with rough brushstrokes before introducing fragmented bodily elements such as eyes, teeth and fingers. The commentary connects these forms to his persistent engagement with life, death, eros and human instinct. It also records Mizutani’s particular attraction to layered red as a colour connecting flesh and blood with ritual or magic.
The title Prey No. 5 can be placed in relation to a broader group of works in which Mizutani repeatedly returned to the idea of 獲物 (emono), or “prey,” during the early 1960s. Catalogue records document numerous works using variations of the Prey title, indicating Mizutani’s sustained exploration of the motif during this period.
Two closely related works are now held in the collection of the Toyohashi City Museum of Art and History: Face of the Prey (1963) and Face of the Prey No. 3 (1964).
Together with Prey No. 5, they allow this development to be followed across three consecutive years:
Prey No. 5 — 1962
Artist’s family collection
Face of the Prey — 1963
Toyohashi City Museum of Art and History
Face of the Prey No. 3 — 1964
Toyohashi City Museum of Art and History
Across these works, fragmented anatomical forms, eyes, teeth and organic structures recur. The catalogue material also reveals a striking development in format: Prey No. 5 of 1962 is horizontal, while numerous documented Prey works from 1963 adopt vertical compositions in which these fragments become increasingly organised around body-like structures.
The recurrence of prey alongside this fragmented treatment of the body connects these works to Mizutani’s broader investigation of human existence and instinct.
Mizutani’s engagement with the body extended beyond painting. In July 1960, he created the stage art for Tatsumi Hijikata’s DANCE EXPERIENCE at Daiichi Seimei Hall in Tokyo, a performance involving Hijikata, Kazuo Ohno, Yoshito Ohno and other performers.
Mizutani’s practice moved between painting, performance and stage design, making the physical body an important point of intersection between different areas of his work.
Seen in this context, the fragmented bodily forms of his early-1960s paintings can be considered alongside his direct engagement with the performing body, without suggesting a simple division between painting and performance.
Prey No. 5 remained in the collection of Mizutani’s family. The reverse bears the artist’s handwritten title, 《獲物 No.5》, together with inscriptions referring to England, London, Molton Gallery and a solo exhibition.
These inscriptions provide an important material record of the work’s history and connect the painting to Mizutani’s early international exhibition activity.
Provenance
Collection of the artist
Thence by descent within the artist’s family
Exhibited
(1963) Molton Gallery, London, solo exhibition
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