Kumi Sugai was a Japanese painter. Best known for his Minimalist and Hard Edge geometric abstractions, Sugai was influenced by the relationships between Japanese calligraphy and Western typography. His paintings often featured a singular, centrally placed shape and a highly graphic aesthetic. Born in Kobe, Japan on March 13, 1919, he developed an interest in art a young age, initially enrolling at the Osaka School of Fine Arts in 1933 and later dropping out to work in commercial advertising during the Second World War. By 1952, Sugai settled in Paris, where he studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere and absorbed contemporary Western painting styles, including Abstract Expressionism and, later, Minimalism and Pop Art. At first,...