Frank Okada was born in Seattle in 1931. Okada received his B.F.A. from Cranbrook Academy in 1957. He lived and worked in Eugene, Oregon until his death in October, 2000.

A lifelong resident of the Pacific Northwest until his untimely death in 2000 at the age of 69, Okada played a significant role in its art history. Born to immigrant parents in Seattle's International District, he went on to a career as professor of art at the University of Oregon, until retiring in 1999.

Commissions, Honors and Awards
Okada was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1967, a Fulbright Fellowship in 1959 and a Whitney Fellowship in 1957. He had several one-person exhibitions at regional institutions, including: The Whatcom County Museum of Art, Bellingham, WA (1997), Portland Art Museum, Oregon (1972) and Tacoma Art Museum, Washington (1970). In addition, Okada’s work had been exhibited in group exhibitions including Asian Tradition, Modern Expression, Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Museum, Rutgers University, NJ (1997); Light, Shadow and Gesture: By Northwest Artists, Seattle Art Museum (1997); Washington: 100 Years, 100 Paintings, Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, WA (1995); ART/LA 90, Los Angeles, CA (1991) and Japan and the Northwest, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan (1982). His work had been shown at the Laura Russo Gallery, Portland, Oregon and Foster/White Gallery, Seattle. Okada exhibited with the Greg Kucera Gallery beginning in 1988 and continuing up to his death in 2000.

Works by the artist are included in the collections of: Philbrook Museum, Museum of Northwestern Art, Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA; Portland Art Museum; SAFECO Insurance Company, Seattle; Seattle Art Museum; Swedish Hospital, Seattle; Tacoma Art Museum, WA; University of Oregon Museum, Eugene; Whatcom Museum of History and Art, Bellingham, WA.

Born in 1931 in Seattle; died 2000 in Eugene, OR

Education
1957 B.F.A., Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan

One Person Exhibitions

2005
Frank Okada: The Shape of Elegance, Museum of Northwest Art, La Conner, WA

2004
White Lotus Gallery, Eugene, OR
Paintings from the Estate, Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle
Robert Canaga Gallery, Eugene, OR
Via Gallery, Boston

1998
Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle (also 1988, 1991, 1993, 1994)

1997
Whatcom Museum of History and Art, Bellingham, WA

1992
Laura Russo Gallery, Portland, OR (also 1991)

1989
Maveety Gallery, Portland, OR (also 1988)

1985
Woodside/Braseth Gallery, Seattle (also 1980, 1982)

1980
Blackfish Gallery, Portland, OR
Lane Community College, Eugene, OR

1979
Foster/White Gallery, Seattle (also 1975, 1976, 1977)

1976
University of Oregon Museum, Eugene, OR (also 1970)
Cornish School of Fine Arts, Seattle
Ann Hughes Gallery, Portland, OR

1972
Richard White Gallery, Seattle (also 1971)
Portland Art Museum, OR

1970
Portland Museum Art School, OR
Tacoma Art Museum, WA

1966
Island Gallery, Seattle

1965
Atrium Gallery, Seattle

Selected Group Exhibitions
2001
Selected Paintings from the Microsoft Collection, Microsoft Conference Center, Redmond, WA

1999
Planes of Color, Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle
Asian Tradition, Modern Expression, Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Museum, Rutgers University, NJ (catalog)
Light, Shadow and Gesture: By Northwest Artists, Seattle Art Museum

1995
The Traditional Impulse, Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle
Washington: 100 Years, 100 Paintings, Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, WA

1992-93
Crosscurrents, Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
...In Abstraction, AT&T Gateway Tower, Seattle, curated by Yvonne Banks

1991
Western Arts Federation Exhibition, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV
ART/LA 90, Los Angeles, CA

1991
Formalism, Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland, OR

1990
Views and Visions in the Pacific Northwest, Seattle Art Museum

1989
Bumberbiennale: Decade of Abstraction, 1979-1989, Bumbershoot Arts Festival, Seattle

1988
Contemporary Survey: A Visible Presence in the Northwest, Cheney Cowles Museum, Spokane, WA

1987
Point of View, Hult Center, Eugene, OR
The Art of St. Martinâ's Abbey, Washington State Capitol Museum, Olympia, WA
War Resistors League Benefit Exhibition, Don Judd Gallery, New York

1986
The Art of St. Martinâ's Abbey, Tacoma Art Museum, WA
Pacific Vista, Asian American Artists of Oregon and Washington, Index Gallery, Clark College, Vancouver, WA

1984
Asian American Invitational, Chinese Benevolent Hall, Portland, OR

1983
Northwest Art in Corporate Collections, Seattle (catalog)
Oregon Invitational, Hult Center, Eugene, OR
Asian American Artists Exhibition, National Invitational, Wing Luke Museum, Seattle

1982
Pacific Northwest Artists and Japan, Seattle Art Museum (catalog)
Japan and the Northwest, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan

1977
Made in America, Asian American Exhibition, Wing Luke Museum, Seattle
Northwest ‘77, Seattle Art Museum

1976
Masters of the Northwest, Seattle Art Museum

1975
Seattle Show, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, CA (catalog)

1971
73rd Western Invitational, Denver Museum of Art, CO (catalog)
Artists of Oregon, Portland Art Museum, OR
West Coast Drawing Invitational, Saint Cloud State College, MN

1970
Northwest Annual Invitational, Seattle Art Museum (also 1965, 1964, 1959, 1958, 1956, 1955)

1968
Exhibition of Northwest Artists, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR

1967
Salon d’Art Sacre, Museum of Modern Art, Paris (catalog)
Group Exhibition, Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris

1966
Seattle Artists, Kobe Municipal Museum, Japan

1963
Younger Washington Artists, Henry Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle (catalog)

1962
Northwest Art Today Exhibition, Seattle World's Fair, Seattle Center (catalog) 1961
Henry Gallery Annual Invitational, University of Washington, Seattle (also 1960, 1959, 1958, 1957, 1956, 1955)

1959
Santa Barbara Museum Biennial, Santa Barbara Museum of Art (catalog) (also 1957)
Northwest Painters Exhibition, Portland Art Museum, OR (catalog)

1958
Tenth Street Annual Invitational, Brata Gallery, New York

1957
Whitney Group Show, Contemporary Gallery, Atlantic City, NJ

Selected Collections
Bank of America Corporation, Seattle
Bank of Tokyo, Portland, OR
Bogle & Gates, Attorneys, Seattle
Erb Memorial Union Collection, University of Oregon, Eugene
Financial Service Company, Bellevue, WA
First National Bank, Portland
Frederick & Nelson Corporation, Seattle
Hult Center Collection, Eugene, OR
Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles
Marvin Stein & Associates, Seattle
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA
Museum of Northwest Art, La Conner, WA
Nord Corporation, Bellingham, WA
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe Law Firm, Seattle
Osborn/Ulland Corporation, Seattle
Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK
Portland Art Museum, OR
City of Portland, Portable Works Art Collection
Preston, Thorgrimson, Shidler, Gates and Ellis, Seattle
Prudential Savings Bank, Seattle
Riddell, Williams, Bullitt & Walkinshaw, Attorneys, Seattle
SAFECO Insurance Company, Seattle
City of Seattle, % for Art Collection, Mayor’s Office for Arts and Culture
Seattle Art Museum
Seattle Betsuin Buddhist Temple
Seattle Health Services
Seattle Public Library
Security Pacific Bank, Seattle
Sheraton Hotel Corporation, Seattle
Simpson Timber Corporation, Seattle
Martin of Tours Collection, Saint Martin's Abbey, Lacey, Washington
Stouffer Madison Hotel, Seattle
Swedish Hospital Medical Center Seattle
Tacoma Art Museum, WA
Jordan Schnitzer Museum, University of Oregon, Eugene
University of Stanford Hospital, Palo Alto
U.S. National Bank, Portland
U.S. West Communications, Seattle
Wells Fargo Bank, Seattle
Whatcom Museum of History and Art, Bellingham

"As a painter, Frank Okada imbued his work with the grace of the vast historic precedent of a highly refined Japanese aesthetic. His brushstrokes could sing of thousands of years of art and still speak the language of the recent 20th century’s art history. A painterly intelligence informed his delicately balanced compositions just as surely as a haiku is ordered by a rigorous discipline and keen observation.

As a man, even in the most casual of meeting, those same qualities of grace, intelligence, and discipline were readily apparent. Upon knowing Frank more deeply, one became aware that an extreme sense of personal modesty was among his most charming personal traits. He will be missed greatly by his colleagues, peers and students in the art world."

-Greg Kucera

Most clearly, Okada’s last series of paintings suggest a great variety of formal influences, including fan, urn and kimono shapes relating to his ancestral Japanese culture. With continued examination, Okada's refined painterly surfaces and highly developed sense of color also become apparent. The expansive paint surface is built of thousands of shimmering brush strokes laid one atop another with small brushes, acquiring an appearance similar to silk brocade.

In this work, familiar shapes once confined to the margins of the canvas have begun to migrate towards the middle of the work and play a more active role as formal elements of the painting. Furthermore, where random chaos once flourished in his vast expanses of color, subtle striations and patterns have appeared in some works, creating a gentle movement from shape to shape. His subtly manipulated fields of color most often come in the form of bright marine blues, crisp whites, golden yellows, and vivid reds. This marked a return to Okada’s work of a dynamic, graphic sense of color and shape.

In Okada's early paintings, each was carefully controlled in both composition and color, alternating as they did between symmetry and implied symmetry and between monochrome and subtly manipulated monochrome. The painted fields of some works become a delicate surface of exquisitely rendered brush strokes, with all of the shimmering complexity of a silk tapestry. In other paintings, the overall color field will be derived from many different tones of that color, perhaps laid over a backdrop of dissimilar hues. In a field of brilliant red the viewer may be startled to catch a glimmer of yellow or to find that the slivers of other colors at the edges repeat themselves in whispers in the under painting within the larger field.