For over five decades, On Kawara created paintings, drawings, books, and recordings that examined chronological time and its function as a measure of human existence. The artist began making his now signature “date paintings” on January 4, 1966 in New York City and continued to make them in different parts of the world until 2013.
The artist started exhibiting in Tokyo in the early 1950s and his works have been included in numerous conceptual art surveys from the seminal Information show at The Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1970 to 1965-1975: Reconsidering the Object of Art at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 1995. Important early solo shows include On Kawara, 1973 - Produktion eines Jahres/One Year's Production at the Kunsthalle Bern and the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels in 1974; and On Kawara: continuity/discontinuity 1963-1979, which was first on view at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 1980 and traveled to the Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, and the National Museum of Art, Osaka. Work by the artist is represented in museum collections internationally, including the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Kunstmuseum Basel; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Philadelphia Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Tate, London; Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Toyota City, Japan; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.