b. January 2, 1933, Kariya, Japan
d. July 2014, New York City, USA

On Kawara was a Japanese conceptual artist known for his groundbreaking explorations of time and memory. Soon after moving to Tokyo in the early 1950s his works were being exhibited at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1953. By the 1960s, Kawara had started traveling internationally, ultimately making New York his base in 1965.

Kawara’s most iconic work, the Today series (1966–2014), involved creating a series of monochromatic paintings, each displaying the date of its creation. Each painting was accompanied by contextual information about his day, such as newspaper clippings, and was tailored to the local language and dating system. Over the course of this series, he produced more than 2,000 paintings across over 100 cities worldwide.

Another notable project, the I Got Up series (1970s), featured postcards that Kawara sent to friends and colleagues, documenting the exact time he awoke on the day he mailed each card. Both of these series reflect Kawara’s deep interest in the passage of time and his unique diaristic approach to art, making his work a profound meditation on the fleeting nature of existence.