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MARTIN BRADLEY
Biography Martin Bradley was
born in Richmond (Surrey, England) in 1931. From a very young age
he discovered Far Eastern Culture (Encyclopaedia Britannica, Lafcadio
Hearn, etc.). In 1947, he started learning Classical Chinese from Arthur
Waley, who taught him how to teach himself. In 1951, he met William
Willetts, the author of Foundations of Chinese Art from Neolithic
Pottery to Modern Architecture, who guided him in his understanding of
Sino-Japanese calligraphy. In 1954, he received lessons in Literary
Tibetan from David Snellgrove. During this period he supported himself
by means of his painting.
In 1960, Bradley obtained a travelling scholarship from the Brazilian
Government, and he stayed in Brazil for two years, painting various
pictures for the decoration of the new presidential palace in Brasília (o
Palácio da Alvorada). Supported by a contract from his Parisian art
dealer (R. A. Augustinci of the Galerie Rive Gauche), he was able to
travel to Nepal where he studied the Buddha teaching and at the same time
taught French at Kathmandu University. In 1970, he settled in Hong Kong,
where he gave lectures on Western art history and also studied Buddhism
under Hsin Kuang, who was then the Abbot of Tung Lin Temple. In 1972, he
travelled on to Japan, where he studied the language and other aspects of
Japanese culture.
In 1974, Martin returned to Italy and in 1975 met his wife, Tatsu, who
was then a student at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma. He has been
using Japanese as a daily language ever since. After living in Paris for
ten years, he and his wife moved to Bruges. Due to his deep interest in
the Buddha teaching over the last few decades, they moved to Japan in
2008, where Bradley now lives quietly and spends his time translating the
various writings of Nichiren Daishōnin.
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“From the onset, his
biography is fascinating, almost what we could label as ‘fictional‘, and
even if we do not wish to delight in the anecdotal, it always helps us
understand—albeit superficially—the circumstances that formed and shaped
the author’s personality in order to understand his accomplishments,
especially in the case of Bradley, whose work displays a huge grasp of
knowledge and life experience, which permeated his existential
philosophy, and are transmitted and molded into his work.”
Raquel Medina Vargas,Art History Director,AICA
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