Bumpei Usui information

Bumpei Usui
碓氷文平 (Usui Bunpei)
Bumpei Usui
Born	(1898-02-25)February 25, 1898 Nagano, Japan
Died	March 1994 New York, New York
Resting place	Nicholson Cemetery, Nicholson, Pennsylvania
Nationality	U. S. citizen
Spouse	Frances Elizabeth Pratt

Bumpei Usui (碓氷文平 Usui Bunpei, 1898—1994) was a Japanese-born American painter known for his social realist cityscapes and scenes of urban life as well as his interiors, flower studies, and still lifes. A critic described his style as "cultivated realism" in 1935.^[1] Other critics praised his handling of color, feeling for textures, and instinct for space values. Some saw Precisionism in his cityscapes. His paintings of people interacting with each other showed both the humorous and harsher sides of city life. Following his death his work received little attention until, in 2014, the Metropolitan Museum of Art bought one of his paintings and subsequently gave it a prominent place in a major exhibition. Along with his career as painter, Usui was a custom frame maker, furniture designer, and lacquering craftsman. He was also a collector of antique Japanese swords and breeder of Siamese cats.