Naoco Kumasaka

Naoco Kumasama was born in Yokohama, Japan, in 1933. In 1956, she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Tokyo. She decided to move to New York at the age of 37 to fully focus on Western art. She spent the following eight years at the prestigious Pratt Graphic Center in New York and became proficient in sculpture, graphics and other media. She maintained a full program of exhibitions during that time.
In the early 1980s Kumasaka came to Pietrasanta, Italy. Together with her spouse, sculptor Sahl Swarz, she went back and forth between their two studios in Japan and Italy for many years. Pietrasanta came to be their second home, where Naoco Kumasaka still works at studio Pescarella. 
Her sculptures show a combination of human and landscape. She chooses to use shapes and special stones that emphasise the scenic and natural.