Tomie Ohtake pioneered abstract art in Brazil, blending Japanese aesthetics with the vibrant cultural landscape of her adopted home. Her journey to becoming one of Brazil’s most celebrated artists began unexpectedly in 1936 when she arrived in São Paulo to visit her brother, only to be stranded by the onset of World War II.

In 1952, despite starting her formal training at the age of 39, under the tutelage of Keisuke Suganon (1909–1963), Ohtake rapidly became a central figure in Brazil’s art scene. By 1953, she joined the Seibi Group, a collective of Japanese artists in São Paulo. She was the only woman working alongside artists like Manabu Mabe (1924–1997) and Tikashi Fukushima (1920–2001), who would go on to develop abstract works in the 1950s.
During this decade, Ohtake participated in several Modern Art Salons and other group exhibitions. In 1957, she held a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in São Paulo. Her early figurative work, focused mainly on landscapes of the city, employed a post-impressionist and expressionist language, reflecting influences that circulated among groups of independent artists. Gradually, she began to explore geometric abstraction, as seen in her untitled 1953 work (Bettiol collection).

The year 1959 marked a key turning point in Ohtake’s journey into abstract art, as she began her “blind paintings,” a series created while blindfolded. This practice, which lasted until the mid-1960s, coincided with her participation in several editions of the São Paulo Art Biennial. The series aimed to make intuition the driving force behind her painting, resulting in soft, gestural abstractions characterized by arabesque shapes, spots, and circular brushstrokes (untitled, 1960).
From then on, Ohtake developed a transcultural geometric abstraction, synthesizing Japanese spiritual beliefs, such as Shintoism and Buddhism, with modernist abstract trends. Her frequent use of circular forms, for example, symbolized both the void and the cosmos, concepts rooted in Eastern philosophy (untitled, 1969).
In the 1970s and 1980s, Ohtake experimented with screen printing, lithography, and metal engraving. She produced a “cosmic geometry,” evoking stars and galaxies, which were often contrasted with straight lines and angular shapes. From 1980 onwards, she also created large-scale sculptures and three-dimensional projects that were installed in cities across Brazil, as seen with Estrela do Mar [Starfish, 1985] installed in Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon, in Rio de Janeiro.

In 1983, Ohtake received the Artistic Personality of the Year award from the Brazilian Association of Art Critics (ABCA) in Rio de Janeiro. From the 1990s onwards, a dynamic, vibrating quality emerged in her work, with geometric shapes—primarily circles and ovals—becoming more prominent. The sharper contours of these forms evolved into lines in her carbon steel sculptures from the 2000s, which featured free and sinuous gestures reminiscent of Japanese calligraphy. One of her untitled sculptures from 2008 is now part of the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo.