SAO PAULO (AFP).- Japanese-born, naturalized Brazilian artist Tomie Ohtake died Thursday aged 101, a week after being hospitalized with pneumonia, her eponymous institute in Sao Paulo told AFP.

Ohtake's trademark geometric abstractions made her one of her adopted homeland's most famed artists, and her 100th birthday last year saw several major retrospectives.

She was admitted last week to a Sao Paulo hospital. On Tuesday, she went into cardiac arrest and wound up in intensive care, where she remained on life support until her death, media reports said.

Born in 1913 in Kyoto, Ohtake came to Brazil in 1936 to visit her brother who lived in Sao Paulo.

She stayed, married and had two children as she settled down in Brazil, home to the biggest ethnic Japanese population outside Japan.

Prevented from returning to Japan after the outbreak of World War II, she did not visit her own country again until 1951.

Ohtake returned to Brazil and produced her first paintings at 39 following a visit to the gallery of fellow Japanese painter Keisuke Sugano.

By 1957, her works were being exhibited at major venues, including the Sao Paulo Museum of Modern Art.

Ohtake, who joined US contemporary painter Mark Rothko in rejecting the classification of "abstract expressionism," took Brazilian citizenship in 1968, becoming the country's  "grande dame" of plastic arts."

In 1988, Brazil bestowed the Order of Rio Branco honor on Ohtake as the country commemorated the 80th anniversary of Japanese immigration to Sao Paulo state. She received Brazil's Order of Cultural Merit in 2006.

One of her sons, architect Ruy Ohtake, is feted in his own right for projects such as Sao Paulo's half moon-shaped Hotel Unique. He also designed the complex housing his mother's works.

As she turned 100, Ohtake told Brazilian television: "I don't feel my age. I stay here (working) until it's time to go to bed."



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