# Shusaku Arakawa artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/shusaku-arakawa/
Profile generated: 2026-05-14T22:17:26.792Z
Quality: high confidence, strong sources

## Artist identity

- Birth date: 1936-07-06
- Death date: 2010-05-18
- Nationality: Japanese, American
- Movements: Conceptual art
- Common media: painting, printmaking, graphic art, drawing, experimental film, architectural design

## About Shusaku Arakawa

Shusaku Arakawa (1936–2010) was a Japanese-born conceptual artist, painter, and architect who spent most of his career in New York City. After studying at Musashino Art University in Tokyo, he relocated to the United States in 1962 and quickly became associated with the international Conceptual art movement. Arakawa is best known for a decades-long creative partnership with the writer and artist Madeline Gins, together producing paintings, prints, experimental films, and architectural designs that explored the relationship between language, image, and human perception. His "Diagrammatology" works—iconotext compositions blending text and visual form—are widely recognized as central to his practice. Major institutions including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Tate in London hold his work in their collections. Arakawa also spent time in West Berlin in the early 1970s and continued to exhibit internationally until his death in Manhattan in 2010.

## Common works and media

Collectors most frequently encounter Arakawa's acrylic and oil paintings incorporating text and geometric diagrams, screenprints and lithographs from his Conceptual series, ink and mixed-media works on paper, and graphic art editions. Some collaborative works with Madeline Gins also circulate in the secondary market. His architectural models and experimental film works are less common at auction but may appear in specialized contemporary art sales.

## Market and appraisal context

Shusaku Arakawa's work appears at auction primarily in Post-War and Contemporary Art and Prints & Multiples categories. Paintings and works from his Diagrammatology series tend to attract the strongest market interest, though prints and drawings are more frequently encountered. Institutional representation at MoMA, Tate, and other major museums supports sustained collector attention. When evaluating an Arakawa work, appraisers consider medium, date, dimensions, condition, provenance, edition size for prints, and whether the piece was created independently or in collaboration with Madeline Gins. Comparable auction results should be consulted for specific valuation guidance.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine structured artist identity research from museum, library authority, and public encyclopedia sources with auction records, auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots when those records are available. For Shusaku Arakawa, identity data is grounded in the Getty ULAN, VIAF, RKD, Tate, and MoMA records.

## Sources

- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q478264
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shusaku_Arakawa
- Getty Vocabulary Program: https://vocab.getty.edu/page/ulan/500123705
- VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/6613/
- Library of Congress: https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79091248
- The Museum of Modern Art: https://www.moma.org/artists/207
- Tate: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/shusaku-arakawa-657
- RKD (Netherlands Institute for Art History): https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/2261