Tezuka Osamu, Astro Boy.

The Marvel of Manga: Tezuka Osamu exhibition opens in Sydney

21 February 2007

Tezuka Osamu is acknowledged as an artistic master and revered as the figurehead of the manga and anime industries in Japan. In the West he is best known for Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion which were serialised internationally for television in the 1960s.

Manga is the Japanese word for comics and print cartoons. Manga, respected both as an art form and as a form of popular literature, has a huge global following and has had a major influence on international comics and animation.

Tezuka Osamu (1928-1989) drew over 150,000 pages of manga and created over 700 manga titles during his lifetime. His work is acclaimed for its complexity and originality and his drawings showcase an extraordinary calligraphic dynamism.

Tezuka: the Marvel of Manga is a tribute to the importance and depth of Tezuka's creativity. The exhibition features over 200 original works from the late 1940s to the late 1980s including black and white ink drawings as well as colourful designs for covers and posters.

Philip Brophy, curator of the exhibition and Australia's leading authority on Japanese and animation and said "This is the first time Tezuka's original drawings have been seen outside of Japan. The exhibition presents the unique power and importance of the manga form within Japanese culture".

Organised by the National Gallery of Victoria in association with Tezuka Productions in Tokyo, the exhibition features work from the two main streams within Tezuka's prolific output; his manga for children and youth-based audience (including Astro Boy, Jungle Emperor and Princess Knight), and his gekiga (drama pictures) that are more seriously toned, adult orientated narratives (including Crime and Punishment, Buddha and Phoenix).