Tomato plant

Tomato plant

Japanese American sculptor Fumio Yoshimura (1926–2002) studied painting at the Tokyo University of Arts in the late 1940s before abandoning the medium entirely. In the 1960s, he moved to New York and taught himself woodwork. In 1970, Yoshimura exhibited at the Philadelphia Academy of Arts while they were showing a large group of works by Marcel Duchamp following his death in 1968.

Inspired by Duchamp’s works, Yoshimura began to create hyperrealist sculptures of bicycles, electric fans and peas in a pod after a pair of earrings worn by Duchamp’s wife. This formative experience contributed to the vast array of everyday objects he rendered in wood, which include a typewriter, a sewing machine, a half-empty egg carton, a knob of ginger.

Yoshimura’s botanical works, such as this tomato plant, masterfully represent his technique. Using knives, chisels and drills, Yoshimura reveals delicate, organic shapes in the hardness of wood. As seen in the exterior of the pot and the plump, roundness of the tomatoes, curved surfaces are laminated by hand. Generally made of unpainted basswood, Yoshimura’s sculptures have a spectral pallor, and he has frequently referred to them as the ghost of an object. Although there are no human figures in Yoshimura’s work, their presence is implied through the pot and supports that protect and guide the plant into an appealing shape. Growing tall and straight, this plant requires the attention, resources and care of an absent gardener.

Tomato plant was acquired in 1974 by then-director Robert (Bob) Ballard, just four years after the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery opened. The gallery’s founding collection policy included a primary focus on contemporary works by New Zealand artists, and a secondary focus on “contemporary works by artists from countries in and around the Pacific Ocean”. This is one of a small number of artworks by artists based in the United States, several of whom had not exhibited in Aotearoa before, purchased in the first decade of the gallery’s history.

— Maya Love, 2023