Harue Koga (Japanese, 1895-1933)

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 Woman Sitting on the Veranda
oil on canvas, 73.0×91.0 cm

Flowers. c. 1925

oil on canvas, 73.0×61.0 cm

The Moon and Flowers. 1926
oil on canvas, 91.0×117.0 cm
The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo

Harbor, 1926
watercolor and pencil on paper, 49.2×62.1 cm

Summer Mountains. 1927

oil on canvas 

 Fireworks. 1927
oil on canvas

 Innocent Moonlit Night. 1929

oil on canvas

Sea. 1929

oil on canvas, 130.0×162.5 cm

 Graceful Landscape, 1930

watercolor and pencil on paper, 22.7×25.8 cm

 

Make-up outside the Window. 1930
The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura; Hayama

Endless flight. 1930

Oil on canvas

 Being, 1933

 watercolor and pencil on paper, 23.8×32.8 cm

Koga's illustrations from Kodomo no kuni [Children's Land] (journals for children founded and published in 23 volumes and 265 issues from January1922 to March 1949.)

Early Summer Scene / "Kodomo no kuni" 1932

April Walk. 1932

May Motifs. 1932

Merry May. 1932

Mid-winter Night's Dream. 1931

Winter. 1932

Harue Koga was born the son of a Buddhist priest in the city of Kurume, Fukuoka prefecture in 1895. Hoping to become an artist he went to Tokyo to join the Taiheiyo Gakai Kenkyujo (Pacific Art Society Institute) in 1912. The next year, he entered the Nihon Suisaiga Kenkyujo (Japan Watercolor Painting Research Institute), where he studied under Ishii Hakutei. His works were selected for Taiheiyo Gakai and Suisaiga exhibitions. In 1915 he returned in Fukuoka and entered the priesthood. His sketches and postcard pictures in those days reveal the influence of the style of Takehisa Yumeji. In 1919 he was deeply moved at Takehisa's exhibition "for women and children." In 1920 he studied religious tone by imitating frescos by Cézanne and Renaissance artists. He was awarded the Nika prize for "Maiso" [Burial]. From around that time, his works began to exhibit elements of abstract expression such as that of Picasso and Laurencin. In October that year he organized the avant-garde society, Action, with more than ten artists, including Kanbara Tai. The society was dissolved not long after, and Koga began producing surrealistic works under the influence of Paul Klee. From 1927 to 1930 he became interested in commercial art, undertaking various poster making and bookbinding jobs.  (Source)

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