Atsuko Tanaka was an innovative artist whose work gained prominence among the flourishing postwar Japanese avant-garde. Interested in understanding the relationship between the body, space, and time, her works challenged traditional notions of art and performance. While a member of the groundbreaking Gutai group, Tanaka created Electric Dress, 1956, a garment made from 200 colorful blinking lightbulbs which the artist wore in performance. From the 1960s onward, Tanaka produced mainly abstract paintings with colorful compositions at once organic and ordered. One of these paintings, WORK, 1963, in Glenstone’s collection, presents a painterly version of Electric Dress; it is comprised of circles inspired by electrical diagrams where circles intertwine with lines.

–Anne Reeve, from the Glenstone Field Guide