For more than 45 years, artist Tsutomu Yokota has pursued his passion for watercolor paintings. He was born in 1945, in the traditional town of Tatsuno, Hyogo prefecture in Japan. At the age of 16, he enrolled in a technical high school to learn to draw. Upon graduation, he was employed by Daimaru, one of the biggest department stores in Japan, in the advertisement section.
After 5 years of dedication to Daimaru, he found his own atelier and created various forms of commercial art more freely. The Japanese economy was very strong at this time, giving excellent opportunity to explore freelance expression. During this period, he was employed as a planner of projects by both private companies and the government. In those projects, his responsibilities were to conceptualize the plans using illustrations painted in watercolor. He also created illustrations for novels, essays, and book covers written by some of Japan’s famous authors. He also served as lecturer at various art colleges and universities.
Currently, he is devoting himself to Japanese traditional and pastoral landscape.
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