About

About Hiroshi Kato

October 2015

Hiroshi Kato (b. 1949) was born in Tokyo, Japan. He completed his studies in Art History at Keio University in 1971. The topic of his thesis was “Greek Tragedy in Kabuki”. 歌舞伎 (Kabuki) is a classical Japanese dance-drama and his thesis examined the process of how Hippolyutus, an ancient Greek tragedy by Euripides, was trasmitted via India and China and evolved into “摂州合邦が辻” (Sesshuu Gappougatsuji), one of most renacted Kabuki plays. At the same time, the thesis also referred to French classic drama, Phèdre by Jean Racine starring Melina Mercouri.

After graduating from college, he joined Kobunsha, a Japanese publication where he was involved in distributorship. In 1973, he returned to the family business of manufacturing car parts. Here he was in charge of personnel management, accounting and sales. During his 35 years there, he also contributed to the expansion of new factories in the Tohoku area of Japan as well as overseas in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Although it was good experience managing the family’s factory business, Kato felt it was tiresome and that he was unsuitable for this business, yearning for a more self-fulfilling career.

After he sold the company, Kato finally had a chance to fulfill his dreams and in 2012, he was finally presented with the opportunity to return to his main interest, the arts. He now runs a gallery space in the iconic and prestigious Raffles Hotel Arcade known as Kato Art Duo  - dedicated to promoting abstract art. However, as Kato was inexperienced at running a gallery, he had difficulties promoting his artists and the first three months were incredibly tough.  In 2014, he found a mentor and began to realise the importance of finding his niche instead of casting a wide net, which leads to nowhere.

Kato’s passion for the arts is not limited to the visual arts. He was writing Haiku for many years and finally decided to start a dedicated blog to share his works with the public. Besides his interest in Haiku, since working for his family, Kato devotes his spare time to researching Astrology and Feng Shui and he will hope to open a blog on Bazi fortune telling in near future. He also appreciates calligraphy arts and since 2004, he has been supporting the graduate students in Chinese Calligraphy department in Capital Normal University in Beijing, China with the hope that the valuable tradition will keep flourishing.