Kikuo Saito: Dime Lake
Curated by Kikuo Saito Studio and Kristin Larkin LoGerfo
On view through 20 Dec. 2026
One does not immediately associate Kikuo Saito, master of abstraction, with the landscape genre, and yet he spent much of his life painting the natural scenes around him; from the Hudson Valley to his old summer home in the Victorian-built whaling community of Cape May, New Jersey, from the surfside hamlet of Rincon, Puerto Rico, to the more kempt, parkland precincts and ramshackle urban cores of Madrid, Vienna, and Rome. He never traveled without his sketchbook and watercolors, pastels, charcoal, pencil, and pen, and his plein-air renderings gave figurative expression to his fancy, making his “color fields” bloom and blurring the distinctions among water, cloud, and sky. This show features a diverse selection of these landscapes, along with a major painting -- in fact, the last painting Saito ever completed -- a large abstract canvas given the landscaped name “Dime Lake.” There is, of course, no real Dime Lake, at least none that Saito ever knew, making his depiction an imaginary vista, the view within, lush with myriad greens. These landscape paintings are displayed alongside works by Kristin Larkin LoGerfo, a student of Saito, and Paul LoGerfo, her husband and the physician of Saito’s first wife, the choreographer and dancer Eva Maier. Brought together by Maier, the friends and companions forged a close bond, particularly through their regular trips together through nature. These works are like the postcards they brought back.
Kikuo Saito, Dime Lake, 2015, Oil on canvas, 56 x 78 in
My time with Kikuo
“In 1990, I was a new art student. When my husband Paul couldn’t join Kikuo for the opening of his art exhibition in Vienna, I had the extraordinary opportunity to learn and walk in Europe with our very special friend. Paul and Kikuo were as close as brothers, and Paul did not want Kikuo to travel alone after Eva’s death, as he was in the depths of profound sorrow.
‘Take my wife,’ Paul told him, a joke that got Kikuo to laugh.
Kikuo walked everywhere and often sketched in a notepad and worked in watercolor. I followed him through the streets and parks and tried to learn how he simplifies, designs, and creates value structures in paint. He worked in a quiet, unassuming way. It seemed like after a few meditative brushstrokes, a beautiful painting emerged!
Kikuo was shy in Vienna and couldn’t be found when the ambassador was speaking about him to the international crowd. After the opening, instead of meeting with potential collectors, we went on a long walk and sketched. Although it was upsetting to the gallery director, Kikuo traveled to make his art, not for the fancy openings, the fame, or the fortune.
While we were traveling, and over many years of friendship, my husband Paul LoGerfo, a doctor and scientist, was inventing a way to visualize human DNA in his lab. When he created the right formula to visualize the pure DNA, it was Kikuo who helped him with the placement and design of his sculpture. This sculpture, Paul’s DNA given to Kikuo as a gift, is now part of the exhibition in the Larkin LoGerfo gallery.
My small oil sketch in the show is an homage to Kikuo, who ‘took Paul’s wife’ and taught her his way. The way of a true artist.
With love to Kikuo and Mikiko.”
– Kristin Larkin LoGerfo