Atsuko Tanaka (1932–2005) was one of Japan’s most prominent avant-garde artists. Her now legendary Electric Dress (1956) is among the most iconic works of the Gutai movement. Often inspired by objects from everyday life, such as calendars, doorbells, and light bulbs, Tanaka explored ways of linking technological developments with new understandings of the body, space, and time. Her abstract paintings, composed of vibrant circles of color connected by lines reminiscent of electronic circuitry, retain visible traces of her movements as she drew, dripped, and traced paint across the canvas.

In 1964, she was awarded the Guggenheim International Award by curator Lawrence Alloway. In the mid-1980s, she was included in major exhibitions across Europe and the United States, including Japon des avant-gardes 1910–1970 at the Centre Pompidou (Paris, 1986) and Scream Against the Sky at the Guggenheim Museum (New York, 1994). In 2001, she was the subject of a retrospective in Japan at the Ashiya City Museum of Art and History.

Tanaka’s work was included in documenta 12 (2007), the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009), Centre Pompidou’s Elles (2010), and the Guggenheim exhibition Gutai: Splendid Playground (2013). Retrospectives of Tanaka’s work have been held at the Grey Art Gallery in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, and Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, UK.

Her work is represented in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, NY; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi; National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan; The Art Institute of Chicago, IL, and Dallas Museum of Art, TX, among others.