Presented in collaboration with the Estate of Teruko Yokoi, EMERALD ROOM | EMERALD EDITIONS serves as an official representative gallery for the Estate, acting non-exclusively for works on canvas and paper and as the exclusive representative for all prints, multiples, and editions. This viewing room features selected works available from the Artist's Estate and invites collectors and curators to explore Yokoi’s artistic evolution through three acts: Setting the Stage, Early Explorations of Identity, and Turning the Mask. EMERALD ROOM is currently leading the Estate’s efforts to produce the first edition of the catalogue raisonné for Yokoi’s paintings. Collectors, curators, or institutions who hold works by Teruko Yokoi are encouraged to contact EMERALD ROOM | EMERALD EDITIONS for consideration of inclusion and verification.
Originally co-curated and hosted by Hollis Taggart Gallery, Teruko Yokoi: Noh Theater was conceived from a curatorial framework and body of work developed by Tai Francis Wallace of EMERALD ROOM. With the return of select pieces, EMERALD ROOM now presents an expanded continuation that offers a more intimate perspective on the exhibition’s origins, art historical context, and the artist’s mid-career evolution.
This presentation illuminates the lesser-known narratives surrounding Yokoi’s exploration of egg tempera and collage, reframing them within her lifelong pursuit of harmony between discipline and freedom. Ceremonial Rebellion. Newly included works—among them early Poppies, a selection of collages, and the 1957 canvas Late Autumn—trace the emergence of her tempered surfaces and mark her shift from color field abstraction and minimalism toward the lyrical language of landscape impressionism.
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The intimate studio where Yokoi developed the visual language that would culminate in the works presented in Teruko Yokoi: Noh Theater.
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ACT I: Setting the Stage
Teruko YokoiLate Autumn, 1957Oil on Canvas35 7/8 x 50 inPainted in 1957, Late Autumn marks the genesis of Teruko Yokoi’s mature vision and serves as the overture to the unfolding narrative of Ceremonial Rebellion. Created during her New York period, the work bridges the influence of Mark Rothko’s meditative color fields and Kenzo Okada’s atmospheric abstraction, yet remains distinctly her own. A horizontal expanse of muted red floats above a pale ground, evoking both the stillness of twilight and the emotional breadth of transition.
In traditional Noh theater, the stage is often set in a field, where shifting elements such as wind, reeds, and the low sun create an atmosphere of restrained drama. Late Autumn occupies a similar space of quiet intensity. Its surface breathes with the light of dusk, suggesting not an end but a beginning; not decline but the poise between memory and renewal.
Exhibited at Galerie Kornfeld and the Kunstmuseum Bern, Late Autumn stands as a touchstone within Yokoi’s continuum, illuminating her early synthesis of Japanese sensibility and Western abstraction. As the first work in this presentation, it sets the stage for what follows: a meditation on resilience, transformation, and the subtle theater of color and light that would define her lifelong practice.
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ACT II: Early Explorations of Identity
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Tempered Triumph
Teruko Yokoi
Ohne Titel, 1993
Egg tempera with metallic silver on paper
61 3/4 x 69 1/4 inIn an interview with Mark Whitney, Teruko Yokoi recalled how several institutional rejections became catalysts for her next creative breakthrough. During the 1970s, she had found success and comfort in invitations to exhibit large-scale oils at the Kunsthalle Bern Weihnachtsausstellung (Christmas Exhibitions) across multiple years. One year in the mid 1970s, her submission of canvases were declined for inclusion in that years Weihnchtsausstellung after years of successive inclusion and top performance in exhibition judgement. Teruko was not given a reason for the rejection.
The following year, the Kunsthalle’s judges invited her to apply again. Yokoi spent the summer developing a new series of poppies; an imagined flower garden for the space she hoped to fill. When the series was again rejected for being “out of theme,” she called her dealer, Martin Krebs, and said, “I need a space for at least three days.” Krebs, whose gallery was typically booked two years in advance, offered her one week. The exhibition was a sensation: presented as a spring garden, it nearly sold out and brought wide attention to her now-iconic poppy and flower works.
"What advice do you have for Young Artiststs today?"
“Do not dwell on rejection. Do not beg for opportunity. Stay true to your source of inspiration. Success will find you.”
— Teruko Yokoi, interview with Mark WhitneyIn the face of multiple rejections, Yokoi redirected her focus inward, choosing perseverance over bitterness. This spirit of renewal defines Ohne Titel (Diptych), a monumental work on paper that embodies Yokoi’s quiet resilience and the disciplined joy of reinvention.Painted in 1993, Ohne Titel marks a pivotal moment in Yokoi’s late career. Created three years after obtaining Swiss citizenship and more than a decade after shifting from monumental abstract oils to the exploration of egg tempera with metallic pigments and powders, the work reflects the mature clarity of her vision. The rejection of her large canvases by the Kunsthalle Bern’s Christmas exhibition in the late 1970s became, paradoxically, a turning point.
While the commercial success of the Poppies series affirmed her standing, Yokoi increasingly turned toward the tactile luminosity and restraint of tempera. This shift marked a deepening of her practice. Ohne Titel exemplifies the serenity and confidence that emerged from that evolution—two vast panels in silver and tempered pigment, poised between gesture and stillness.
The work remained unseen until it was presented on the focus wall of Teruko Yokoi: Noh Theater (Hollis Taggart Gallery, New York, 2025), co-curated by Emerald Room. For Yokoi, the journey from rejection to renewal was not a detour from her artistic path, but the crucible through which her mature language was forged. Ohne Titel stands as both a meditation on persistence and a testament to her enduring belief that an artist’s truest success is found in steadfast creation.
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ACT III: Turning the Mask
The evolution of Yokoi's Poppies
Across nearly two decades, Poppies-2 (1982), Poppies-D (1984), and Poppies-F (2001) trace the evolution of Teruko Yokoi’s Poppies series from atmospheric abstraction toward a more contemplative, impressionist language. Painted in egg tempera with metallic pigment on paper, these works carry the memory of her quiet defiance after the Kunsthalle Bern rejected her Poppies as “out of theme,” a moment that ultimately shaped her most enduring body of work. In the spirit of Noh Theater, Yokoi learned to “turn her mask,” adapting within an art world defined by insider circles while preserving her integrity and independence. Her poppies would become her Rebellion, her work in egg tempera and inclusion of Washi tea paper in her collage work, her cerfemonial tribute to her heritage and her warrior spirit.
The poppy became her emblem of endurance and renewal, its radiance expressing strength beneath restraint. From the energetic fields of Poppies-2 to the calm precision of Poppies-F, each work embodies the discipline of survival and the quiet performance of resilience that defined Yokoi’s art and life.
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Between Shadow and Bloom
The emergence of Yokoi's mature language through collage, metallic pigment and tempera
Teruko Yokoi
Im Garten, 1980
Egg tempera with metallic colour and collage on paper
27 1/4 x 21 in -
The Sword and the Flower
The iris as a meditation on Courage and LineageTeruko YokoiIris II,I,III 1982Egg tempera with metallic colour and pencil on paperPainted in 1982, Iris I, II, III represents the continuation of Teruko Yokoi’s floral series, expanding upon the success of her Poppies and affirming her mastery of egg tempera as both a physical and emotional medium. Created as three individual works that together form a visual triptych, the series reveals Yokoi’s refined command of color, rhythm, and form. The luminous fields and delicate metallic hues evoke a meditative stillness, signaling a transition from her earlier, more expressive abstractions toward a language of harmony and restraint.
The Iris series also connects deeply to Japanese symbolism, where the flower represents courage, purification, and protection against evil. The straight pointed leaves, reembling representing the blade of a sword and embodying the spirit of Teruko's samurai ancestors and some of the original actors in Noh theater. In the context of Noh Theater, where every gesture and silence carries meaning, Yokoi’s Irises function like a quiet performance. Their subtle gradations of tone and light mirror the discipline of Noh itself, a theater of pauses and presence rather than spectacle. One of these works was first shown at Martin Krebs Gallery in Switzerland, the same dealer who championed Yokoi after her rejection from the Kunsthalle Bern. Exhibited now as a unified triptych, Iris I, II, III stands as both a reflection of renewal and a continuation of her lifelong dialogue between tradition, individuality, and perseverance.
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Selection of Curated Works
Selected works available for acquisition -
In Closing
As Ceremonial Rebellion draws to a close, the stage quiets but the resonance of Teruko Yokoi’s art remains. Each painting and collage is a scene within a larger performance, a record of courage, solitude, and renewal. Through egg tempera, metallic pigments, and paper born of ceremony, she translated the movement of light into language. What began in rejection and displacement became a lifelong practice of balance, where silence could hold emotion and restraint could reveal beauty.
To live with these works is to invite that same quiet theater into one’s own space. Each composition becomes a backdrop for daily life, a surface against which moments unfold. They ask to be seen not only as images but as intervals of time, fields of reflection where the viewer’s own story can enter. Teruko Yokoi’s art endures as she lived, with grace, discipline, and an unspoken strength that continues to illuminate all who stand before it.
Curated by Tai Francis Wallace in collaboration with the Estate of Teruko Yokoi. Research and representation supported by EMERALD ROOM | EMERALD EDITIONS.
