Tetsu Okada (岡ç°徹, 1914âÂÂ2007) was a Japanese painter associated with Surrealism and avant-garde art in Nagoya. Largely self-taught, he was active in the city's prewar Surrealist milieu and helped form the groups Avant-Garde, Torupi, and the Nagoya Avant-Garde Club. In 1941, during the wartime repression of Japanese Surrealism, the Special Higher Police searched his home and confiscated most of the works and records in his studio. After World War II, he remained active as a painter, organizer, and teacher in the Nagoya art world.
Okada was born in Nagoya in 1914. He was largely self-taught as a painter and became one of the figures associated with Surrealist art in the TÃ Âkai region.
According to later exhibition chronologies, in 1936 he helped form the painting group Avant-Garde with Yoshio Shimozato and others. In 1937 he also participated in the formation of the Surrealist painting group Torupi and the interdisciplinary Nagoya Avant-Garde Club, which brought together painters, critics, poets, and photographers in Nagoya.
A 1990 exhibition catalogue published by the Nagoya City Art Museum states that the Nagoya Avant-Garde Club was formed in November 1937 around Yoshio Shimozato and Chirà « Yamanaka, and lists Okada among its founding members together with painters including Togawa Kaneo, Yoshikawa Sanshin, Oguchi Noboru, Imai Tatsuo, Ikai Shigeaki, Andà  Kaoru, Suzuki Tetsu, and Mitsuzaki Kazuyuki, as well as photographers Minoru Sakata and Seikà  Samizo. The same source states that the group split and dissolved in April 1939, when Shimozato formed Nagoya Photo Avant-Garde.
A separate entry in the same catalogue notes that Nagoya Photo Avant-Garde was formed in February 1939 from the photography section of the Nagoya Avant-Garde Club and included Kansuke Yamamoto among its members. Okada thus belonged to the same Nagoya Surrealist milieu from which Yamamoto's later photographic practice emerged.
After the breakup of the Nagoya Avant-Garde Club, Okada and other painters including Togawa, Kikkawa, and Oguchi moved toward the newly formed Bijutsu Bunka Kyà Âkai. The 1990 catalogue states that they also organized the group Yà «kai in July 1939 and exhibited actively in the first Bijutsu Bunka Kyà Âkai exhibition in 1940. Nagoya Gallery likewise states that Okada participated in the founding of Bijutsu Bunka Kyà Âkai in 1939.
In 1941, as wartime political pressure intensified and Japanese Surrealism came under suspicion, Okada's home was searched by the Special Higher Police. Museum and gallery accounts state that most of the works in his studio, together with his records, were confiscated. The Kiyosu City Haruhi Museum of Art places this episode in the broader wartime repression that also affected figures such as Ichirà  Fukuzawa and Shà «zà  Takiguchi. In Nagoya, that same repressive climate also bore on the Surrealist milieu around Kansuke Yamamoto, who was active in Nagoya Photo Avant-Garde, the photography group formed in 1939 from the photography section of the Nagoya Avant-Garde Club.
This wartime experience left Okada with a lasting hostility toward abuses of power and a strongly anti-establishment spirit, themes that shaped much of his later work.
After the war, Okada continued to work as a painter in Nagoya. The Kiyosu City Haruhi Museum of Art describes his later work as addressing war, killing, and environmental destruction through series such as Green Work, Angels, Crows, Atomic Bomb, and Starry Night. artscape describes him as an artist who continued to depict social irrationality even after experiencing wartime cultural repression, and as one of the figures who led Surrealist art in the TÃ Âkai region.
Okada also remained active as an organizer and educator. Kiyosu City Haruhi Museum of Art notes that he long served as a representative of Bijutsu Bunka Kyà Âkai and helped launch regional groups including the Chà «bu Zaiya Art Federation and the Chà «bu Artists Council.
His work is held by museums including the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art and the Kariya City Art Museum, and Art Platform Japan's museum-collections search lists 29 collection records for his work nationwide. He was the subject of centenary and 110th-anniversary exhibitions at Kiyosu City Haruhi Museum of Art in 2014 and 2024, and of a 2024 exhibition at Nagoya Gallery devoted to "Tetsu Okada and Surrealism in Nagoya".