Hidetoshi Nagasawa (1940-2018) was a Japanese sculptor and architect, who lived and worked in Italy from 1967 until his death in 2018. Nagasawa, like Kounellis, Twombly, and a few others, chose to live and work in Italy, absorbing its aesthetic traditions and ideas into his imaginary universe without forgetting those of his own roots in Asian and Japanese culture. Strongly evocative as well as being of highly symbolic and poetic value, Nagasawa’s work forged one of the most intensely motivated and convincing plastic languages of the second half of the twentieth century.
After working briefly as an interior designer in Japan, he set out in 1966 on the legendary journey that took him across Asia: from Japan to Thailand by boat, and then by bicycle from Bangkok to Greece. He arrived in Milan, Italy in August 1967, where the unexpected theft of his bicycle would mark his destiny and the beginning of a new life in Italy, full of adventures, encounters, and prodigious artworks. He quickly became immersed in the artistic fervour of Milan and came to know artists such Enrico Castellani, Luciano Fabro, Mario Nigro, and Antonio Trotta.
