Yasu Shibata

Adjunct Professor

Yasu Shibata was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1968. He received his B.F.A. from Kyoto Seika University, where he studied with the renowned printmaking professor Akira Kurosaki. In 1991 Shibata moved to the United States. He worked for ten years at Tyler Graphics, where he produced prints for artists such as Frank Stella, David Salle, Helen Frankenthaler, and Donald Sultan, using both Japanese and Western woodcut techniques.

Shibata currently works for the New York contemporary print publisher Pace Editions, where he works exclusively in the ukiyo-e style Japanese woodcut technique. He has created limited editions for Chuck Close, Helen Frankenthaler, April Gornik, James Siena, Francesco Clemente, Ghada Amer & Reza Farkhondeh, Qi Zhilong, and Yoshitomo Nara.

Shibata has taught relief printing at Cooper Union since 1998. He has also taught Japanese woodcut workshops at Montclair State University in New Jersey, and at Long Island University in New York.

In his own artwork, Shibata uses the ukiyo-e and reduction woodcut techniques together, layering simple shapes of pigment that radiate intense color.

9 Planets (2017)
9 Planets (2017)

 

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.