Kuniko Satake

Kuniko Satake (佐竹邦子, born 1970, Kanagawa Prefecture) is a Japanese printmaker and educator whose practice centers on lithography — including the distinctive lithographs she prints from plywood — alongside other print media. She is a professor in the printmaking programme (Graphic Arts Course) at Tama Art University in Tokyo, and has built a substantial record of awards on the Japanese and international print circuit.

Satake was born in Kanagawa Prefecture and trained at Tama Art University, graduating from the Painting Department in 1995 and completing the printmaking course of its graduate school in 1997. She has since taught at Tama Art University, where she holds a professorship in the printmaking programme.

Her award record spans more than two decades. In 2000 she received the Japan Print Association Prize at the 68th Print Exhibition (Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum), together with the Toyama Prefectural Museum of Modern Art Prize and the Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Modern Art Prize in the same year; in 2003 she received the Tokyo Wonder Wall Prize; and in 2004 she won the Munakata Memorial Grand Prize at the Fukumitsu Munakata Memorial Print Award Exhibition. She has been repeatedly recognized at the Kochi International Print Triennial — the Tosa Yamada Town Art Museum Award at the 6th edition (2005), an Excellent Prize at the 7th (2008), and the Vice Grand Prize at the 9th (2014). In 2005 she also received an Agency for Cultural Affairs Purchase Award, and in 2015 a Purchase Award at the Bangkok International Print and Drawing Exhibition in Thailand. Earlier in her career her prints were shown at the International Mini-Print Biennial in Cluj, Romania, where she received honorable mentions in 1999 and 2003.

She has held regular solo exhibitions in Tokyo at Galerie Tokyo Humanité and has exhibited and taught internationally; in 2016 she undertook a five-month international residency with workshops across the United States, Portugal, France, the United Kingdom, Thailand, and Australia. Her work has entered public collections through purchase awards, including that of the Agency for Cultural Affairs in Japan, and she is among the printmakers documented by the University of Porto's IN Pure Print project on contemporary printmaking.

Within the Japanese print scene Satake is one of the more consistently awarded academic printmakers of her generation. Her sustained presence on the Tama Art University faculty and her long international award record together position her as a key transmitter of contemporary Japanese lithographic practice to the international print biennial circuit.