Sadao Hasegawa - Suicide Details

Suicide Details

A few days before his death, Hasegawa had lunch with friend and American artist, John C. Goss. Jovial and witty as usual, he showed Goss photos of his latest paintings - a series depicting nude, Hindu-inspired male deities. These works would come to be exhibited at a memorial exhibition, along with a final series of starkly disembodied and erect phalluses unlike anything else Hasegawa ever created. Hasegawa's brother had cleaned out the artist's apartment and thrown out all of his works, unaware of their value, but rescued them after receiving a letter posted from Bangkok by Hasegawa asking that his works be sold at the Naruyama Gallery following his death. According to Toshie Urabe, who spoke with Hasegawa's brother, the only clues left at the scene of his death were a small piece of rope (he had asphixiated himself using rope tied around a door knob) and a small stone on which he had painted a portrait of Yukio Mishima (Hasegawa's death preceded the anniversary of Mishima's own suicide).