TEZUKA Osamu, Japanese 1928-89
Astro Boy (Tetsuwan Atomu)
Title page for The Treasures of Zolomon
1967 watercolour 84.0 x 50.0 cm
© Tezuka Productions

Tezuka: The Marvel of Manga

23 February - 29 April 2007
Asian Gallery, Ground Level

Osamu Tezuka is Japan’s leading and most historically important manga artist. In Australia he is best known for his animations Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion which were serialised on TV in the 1960s. This exhibition presents Tezuka as the artistic master through a selection of pen and ink drawings and original colour cover designs for 22 individual manga, or ‘comic picture’ stories. These represent the expansive scope of Tezuka’s oeuvre including children’s manga such as Princess Knight, his first work directed at girls and adult manga such as Ludwig van Beethoven on the life of the composer and the Song of Apollo, the artist’s last work about life after global nuclear holocaust.

Osamu Tezuka (1928-1989) is revered as the figurehead of the manga and anime industries which continue to flourish in today’s Japan. His work is acclaimed for its originality and complexity in demonstrating a sophisticated handling of issues of the nature of human existence, individual identity and responsibility for technology. A prolific artist Tezuka’s work contains two main streams: manga for children and youth and gekiga, or‘drama pictures’, manga for adults which take up more serious subjects and stress realistic effect and emotional impact. The selection of works in the exhibition showcases the artist’s extraordinary calligraphic dynamism and ability to convey in compressed visual sequences dramatic narratives of compelling conceptual and emotional depth.

The exhibition is organised by the National Gallery of Victoria in association with Tezuka Productions and curated by Philip Brophy.