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Foreword
This archive will gradually preserve records of the works and artistic career of Masahiko Doh.
His works, art books, exhibition materials, photographs, newspaper articles, and the memories of people who knew him have become dispersed over many years. The present locations of some of them are now unknown.
DOH ART ARCHIVE records works and materials that can currently be confirmed. It also preserves what remains unknown as unknown, adding new materials and facts whenever they are found.
We are not waiting for everything to be complete before we begin.
We record one work, one document, and one testimony at a time. We believe that their accumulation will itself become an archive.
If you know the works of Masahiko Doh, own one of his works, or may have an art book, exhibition material, invitation, photograph, newspaper article, or other related item, we invite you to look again among the things close to you.
From those discoveries, the still-unknown path of the artist may gradually come into view.
Principles of This Archive
- We distinguish confirmed facts from testimony, observation, and interpretation.
- We do not fill gaps with speculation; we preserve them as unconfirmed.
- When new materials or facts are confirmed, we add them to the record.
- When sources differ, we record those differences as well.
- We do not reduce the meaning of a work or the artist’s intention to a single answer.
- We respect the rights attached to works, photographs, publications, and other materials.
- Our purpose is not sales. It is to know, see, and think about the works, and to preserve those records for future generations.
- We do not attempt to complete everything at once. We build the record one work at a time.
About Masahiko Doh
Masahiko Doh was an artist who worked across many forms, including painting, printmaking, and relief.
His works depict recognizable subjects such as people, plants, animals, cities, and nature. Many also evoke what cannot be seen directly: time, space, the cosmos, and life.
In 1985, Kodansha published Masahiko Doh Print Collection, a collection of his prints.
The book contains 65 works and is now one of the principal sources for understanding his prints and artistic path.
Chronology of Masahiko Doh
This chronology includes matters still being verified and possible corrections. Comparison with source materials is continuing, and the record will be updated as new facts are confirmed.
1930
Born in Akasaka, Tokyo.
1940
Through his father’s connections, leading artists and art critics associated with the Imperial Art Exhibition and the Japan Fine Arts Exhibition visited the family home, giving him early contact with painting and crafts.
1945
Began sculpture as an extension of metal engraving and later moved into relief work.
1977
Received a prize and a special prize at an exhibition of the Shin Nihon Bijutsuin.
1981
Selected for the Japan–France Contemporary Art Exhibition; the selected work was shown at the Grand Palais in Paris.
1982
Created the serigraph 《女人結界》.
He then produced many serigraphs over a short period.
《女人結界》 received an award in the print division of the International Asian Contemporary Art Exhibition.
1984
Held solo exhibitions, including one at Matsuya Ginza.
Received the highest award at an art exhibition held in Australia.
The chronology in Kodansha’s Masahiko Doh Print Collection states that a work entered the collection of an art university in Brisbane.
1985
Kodansha published Masahiko Doh Print Collection.
1986
Records refer to a work entering the collection of the University of Tokyo and to his participation in a Japanese arts festival in Montreal.
Other material states that he received an award of merit from Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney; the archive is continuing to verify the source.
1987
A record states that he received the Grand Prix at an international salon in Paris. Confirmation from a primary source remains to be completed.
1989
Held solo exhibitions in Canada.
Surviving exhibition material lists the following dates:
Quebec: September 4, 5, and 6
Montreal: September 12, 13, and 14.
2010
A record gives February 9 as the date of his death.
2026
Construction of DOH ART ARCHIVE began to preserve the works, materials, testimony, and viewing records of Masahiko Doh for future generations.
This chronology is based on the chronology in Kodansha’s Masahiko Doh Print Collection and includes materials and testimony confirmed subsequently.
When new material is discovered, it will be added after its source has been checked.
Under review: the place of birth differs between the record based on the Kodansha book, which gives Akasaka, Tokyo, and a later source, which gives Aoyama, Tokyo. The archive will update the record after the sources have been verified.
Kodansha’s Masahiko Doh Print Collection
Title Masahiko Doh Print Collection
Author Masahiko Doh
Publisher Kodansha Ltd.
Editing Daiichi Publishing Center Co., Ltd.
Publication date March 25, 1985
ISBN 4-06-201610-9
The book contains 65 works.
DOH ART ARCHIVE records and views these 65 works one by one, in the order in which they appear in the book.
The Art Book in Its Setting
About Eshin
As one viewer, this is a 2026 record of viewing the 65 works included in Kodansha’s Masahiko Doh Print Collection.
The central focus is Masahiko Doh and his works.
This Week’s Work and Interpretation
No.1 “Time and Gravity”
Masahiko Doh
Observation and interpretation by Eshin
Basic Information
Year 1982
Medium Serigraph
Dimensions 87 × 57 cm
Source Kodansha, Masahiko Doh Print Collection, No.1
Masahiko Doh Exhibition in Montreal
Montreal Botanical Garden — Japanese Garden
June 1–November 1, 2026
View “Paintings and Serigraphs by Masahiko Doh” exhibition information
The exhibition presents works by Masahiko Doh at the Japanese Garden / Japanese Pavilion.
Observation and Interpretation by Eshin
1982, 87 × 57 cm. This is the very first work placed in the print collection.
When I first saw it, I thought, “This is a difficult work.” And yet it appears at the very beginning of the book. Why does the collection start with this work? That question first drew me back into the image.
Against a black background, rectangles overlap in many layers. Are they boards, roads, or space itself? Following the gradations, the direction seems to turn ninety degrees partway through. Is this a visual trick that uses an optical illusion? That was my first thought. But if that were all, why would the work be titled “Time and Gravity”?
I look at the two spheres, and their shadows draw my attention. Each seems to have two shadows. Ordinarily, I would think about the source of light. But as I continue looking, I begin to wonder whether one of them is not a shadow at all, but the place where the sphere existed only a moment earlier.
If so, within a single still image I am seeing both the sphere in its present position and the sphere as it was immediately before. Gravity continues to act while the sphere moves. Might the almost regular distance between the two positions also signify intervals of time?
At this point, the title suddenly draws closer: “Time and Gravity.” Is the artist attempting to make these two invisible forces visible through the positions of the spheres, their shadows, their movement, and the distortion of space?
I then look again at the slab-like space. What would happen if this space itself were distorted? I take flat space for granted when I look, but that assumption may not itself be correct.
The pale rectangles overlap in many layers, and parts of them are concealed by black areas. Because they are hidden, is there nothing there? No. In my mind, I complete the unseen continuation. Unless I accept the possibility that what I cannot see still exists, I cannot even perceive the image as a single space. Realizing this, I feel that my own way of perceiving the work is also being questioned.
The overlapping rectangles also seem to rotate gradually clockwise. Their colors deepen toward the distance and eventually dissolve into darkness. At first I saw the black as an unsettling space. As I continue looking, however, it seems to guide me quietly toward the depths of the cosmos, carrying more than fear alone.
In the blue, stippled sphere, I sense a dimension different from the world we know—a cosmos still unknown to us. The overlapping rectangles also bring a pyramid to mind. This association, however, is colored by a later memory: the artist himself once told me that the exterior of his studio was designed with “the pyramid and the cosmos” in mind. I do not know whether it is appropriate to connect this 1982 work directly with the studio he built later.
At first, I could think only that the work was difficult. But as I looked again at the shadows, considered the hidden space, and returned to the title, I began to feel that I could see, if only faintly, why this work was placed first in the book. I have not found an answer. Rather, the questions that recur throughout the works that follow—time, space, the cosmos, and what can and cannot be seen—seem already to have been placed here, at the entrance.
About the Artwork Image
Out of respect for copyright, the artwork image is not currently published here.
No.2 “Street Corner B-G”
1983 · 87 × 57 cm · In Eshin’s collection
The title is “Street Corner B-G.” At first, the words “street corner” made me look for buildings, roads, and the places where people live. Yet the image does not present an ordinary street corner in a recognizable way.
What I first feel strongly are hard, human-made forms. Straight lines divide, bend, and combine, occupying the space. Within these artificial forms, black feels heavy and closed. I sense in it the strength of cities, architecture, and the civilization built by human beings.
But there is green within it.
If I treat the green as only a color choice, the work quickly becomes a matter of design. To me, however, the green suggests nature: nature enclosed and pressed into a space defined by artificial lines and masses.
At first, I felt that civilization was suppressing nature. But the longer I looked, the more I noticed that this was not the whole story. The green has not disappeared. It enters the artificial forms, changes shape under those conditions, and still remains alive. Though confined, it is not dead; it seems to adapt and continue living.
At that point my way of seeing changed. Perhaps nature and civilization cannot be understood simply as opposing forces. Human beings build cities, divide land, lay roads, and construct buildings. Yet nature sprouts even within such environments, changes form, and adapts over time.
The relationship between black and green also becomes more than a contrast of colors. Because black suggests the force and enclosure of artificial civilization, the life remaining in the green becomes more visible. Because the green exists, the artificial black forms appear even stronger. Color and form complement one another and make me think about the relationship between nature and civilization.
When I follow the thin lines and small areas of color, the image no longer feels still. My gaze is blocked, redirected, and led elsewhere. A street corner, too, is a place where we cannot see what lies beyond until we turn the corner. Beside what is visible now, another unseen place exists.
The letters B-G make me think of Black and Green, though I cannot claim that this was the artist’s intention. In my own viewing, however, black and green became an entrance into thinking about human civilization and the nature that continues to live within it.
There is also time here: the time in which civilization encloses nature, the time in which nature adapts, and the time in which cities change. Beyond all of this is the order of nature and the cosmos, which existed before human civilization and continues regardless of human convenience.
I began by thinking I was looking at an abstract design of a street corner. As I continued looking, I found myself thinking instead about how nature continues to exist within an order created by human beings. Nature is confined by civilization, yet adapts and remains. That small realization became, for me, an important entrance into “Street Corner B-G.”
No.3 “Blue Space”
1983 · 38 × 56.5 cm · In Eshin’s collection
The first thing that enters my eyes is blue. Yet calling this blue a “background” seems to lose something important.
The blue is not merely a color placed behind the forms. It fills the whole image and allows forms of different sizes to exist within it. There are triangles, white lines, red lines, and forms that seem almost three-dimensional.
When I look only at the blue, I sense a deep and quiet space. White introduces something like light or boundaries. Red then enters that stillness as a strong stimulus, drawing my gaze toward it for an instant.
The colors do not exist separately. Because blue is there, white rises forward; because white is there, the depth of blue changes. Red gives direction and movement to the stillness. As the colors complement one another, distances appear that should not exist on a flat surface.
At first I tried to look at the triangles and solid-looking forms themselves. But as I followed the colors and differences in scale, I became more interested in the spaces between one form and another.
On a flat surface those gaps are very small. Yet through the depth of blue, the strength of white and red, and the varying sizes of the forms, a tiny interval can become an immense distance. A form that seems near can suddenly recede; something that seems to approach can appear to pass into the depth of the blue.
Although the image is still, its sense of distance changes within the time of my viewing.
I return to the title: “Blue Space.” Is blue simply the color used to paint space, or is it the blue itself that creates the space?
I thought I was looking at objects, but before long I found myself looking at the places I had assumed were “nothing.” Is the space between objects really empty? It contains distance, direction, light, and the time of my moving gaze. It may also contain things that human beings cannot yet perceive.
In No.1, I began to question the space that appeared visible. In No.2, I sensed the time through which nature continues to exist within artificial civilization. In No.3, I begin to feel that the space I had regarded as “nothing” may itself be the larger field that allows forms to exist.
My first perception of blue as background gradually reverses. Blue is not a background. At least to me now, it appears to be space itself: connecting forms, creating distance and time, and opening the imagination toward an expanse that we may not yet be able to perceive.
Next update: Friday, September 18, 2026
Continuing with No.4 “Sky (Information).”
Updated every Friday.
Past Published Works
Kodansha Print Collection — 65 Works / Continuous Reading
No.1 “Time and Gravity” · No.2 “Street Corner B-G” · No.3 “Blue Space” · No.4 · No.5 · No.6 · No.7 · No.8 · No.9 · No.10 · No.11 · No.12 · No.13 · No.14 · No.15 · No.16 · No.17 · No.18 · No.19 · No.20 · No.21 · No.22 · No.23 · No.24 · No.25 · No.26 · No.27 · No.28 · No.29 · No.30 · No.31 · No.32 · No.33 · No.34 · No.35 · No.36 · No.37 · No.38 · No.39 · No.40 · No.41 · No.42 · No.43 · No.44 · No.45 · No.46 · No.47 · No.48 · No.49 · No.50 · No.51 · No.52 · No.53 · No.54 · No.55 · No.56 · No.57 · No.58 · No.59 · No.60 · No.61 · No.62 · No.63 · No.64 · No.65
Let Us Hear Your Interpretation
When you encounter a work by Masahiko Doh, what do you see?
Different interpretations are natural. That difference is part of each person’s individuality.
Each person gains knowledge and accumulates experience within their own time and circumstances. When we view a work, all that we are becomes connected to our interpretation.
Eshin considers the work to be a mirror. To view a work is also to see oneself reflected in it and to recognize who one is at that moment. Please let us hear your interpretation. If those interpretations can lead to thoughtful discussion through the works, that would be a source of great happiness.
Submitted texts are not published automatically. The administrator reviews each submission and decides whether it may be published. If the reader does not wish it to be published, it will not be published.
DOH ART ARCHIVE 