Hitsuda Nobuya: Scenes Passed By
Nobuya Hitsuda
$24.36 (+tax)
*Available early April 2026. Pre-order now.
This catalogue documents the largest retrospective to date of painter Nobuya Hitsuda (b. 1941, Tokyo), featuring approximately 120 works spanning from the 1960s to his latest pieces in 2026, alongside previously unpublished archival materials.
“Scenes Passed By”—Nobuya Hitsuda has consistently used this phrase to title his works and numerous solo exhibitions. The burnt fields and the streets of Tokyo rebuilt from the ashes; the finally developing suburbs surrounding Aichi Prefectural University of the Arts where he began teaching in 1975 — Taking such familiar, ever-changing scenery as his starting point, Hitsuda developed a distinctive painting practice that employs Western painting techniques while incorporating essences of Eastern painting traditions, including yamato-e and shanshui (landscape painting). He called these sceneries“Scenes Passed By.” Though appearing serene at first glance, Hitsuda’s paintings are in fact deeply innovative, and together with his persistent dedication to his practice and his long career in art education, he has profoundly influenced contemporary artists.
In addition to the exhibited works, this catalogue includes a rich collection of texts—columns written from diverse perspectives such as “Production,” “Architecture,” “Sansui,” “Postwar Japanese Art,” as well as critical essays and a chronology. It also features archival materials such as scrapbooks and files collected by Hitsuda, offering a renewed examination of what his “landscapes” and “paintings” truly are, and what we can draw from them.
Exhibition
Hitsuda Nobuya: Scenes Passed By
April 4–Jun 21, 2026
Toyota Municipal Museum of Art
Size: A4 variant / Hardcover / 256P
Text: Yuki Okumura, Dai Katsuragawa, Kohei Kuwada, Ryosuke Kondo, Yusuke Sasaki, Shiori Sahara, Yuko Hasegawa, Toshiharu Suzuki
Design: Toshimasa Kimura, Sumire Kobayashi
Languages: Japanese / English
Price: 3,600 yen
Publisher: torch press
ISBN: 978-4-907562-63-2 C0071
Year: 2026
Nobuya Hitsuda
He was born in 1941 in Ota ward, Tokyo, and currently lives in Aichi Prefecture. He graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts in 1964 with a degree in oil painting and completed his graduate studies there in 1966. He taught oil painting at Aichi Prefectural University of the Arts from 1975, and at Tokyo University of the Arts from 2001 to 2009. He has received the Nagoya City Art Encouragement Award (1984), the 28th Yasui Award (1985), and the Seiji Togo Memorial Museum Grand Prix Award (2011), and has exhibited his works in solo and group exhibitions both in Japan and abroad. In 2009, “In the Little Playground Hitsuda Nobuya and his surrounding students” was held at both the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art and the Nagoya City Art Museum, introducing Hitsuda’s journey so far, through his own works and those of his 19 former students including Yoshitomo Nara, Hiroshi Sugito, and Shin Morikita.
