Teruko Yokoi was born in Tsushima City, near Nagoya, Aichi, Japan in 1924. As a young child, Yokoi received oil painting lessons from Kouki Suzuki and was exposed to haiku poetry and calligraphy through her father. Yokoi trained in methods of traditional Japanese painting, moving to Tokyo in 1949 and continuing her studies with the renowned painter Takanori Kinoshita. Yokoi soon developed a fervor for European contemporary art, and in 1953, in the wake of World War II, left Japan for San Francisco.

Arriving in 1954, Yokoi spent a formative year at the California School of Fine Arts entrenched in a milieu of artists and writers. As one of two Japanese students studying at the school, Yokoi swiftly turned further towards abstraction, creating works which responded to a distinctly modern visual language. During her studies, Yokoi received many accolades: a Top Honor Scholarship, fourth prize at the Seventy-Fourth Annual Painting and Sculpture Exhibition, and a scholarship from the Japan Society Scholarship.

Receiving a grant for her studies in 1955, Yokoi moved to New York, enrolling in the school of the legendary German Abstract Expressionist Hans Hoffmann. It was during this time that Yokoi met Kenzo Okada, an Abstract Expressionist Japanese-born painter working in America, who moved from Tokyo to New York in 1950. Okada, among many others, became friends with Mark Rothko, whom he introduced to Yokoi. In 1957, Yokoi met Sam Francis and the couple married in 1959 and welcomed their daughter that same year. Yokoi, Francis, and their daughter Kayo resided in the penthouse of the Chelsea Hotel alongside vanguards such as Joan Mitchell. At this juncture, Yokoi’s work grew increasingly concerned with the use of color, with the artist producing works that put varying colors in conversation with one another.  

In 1960, Yokoi moved to Paris, and from abroad, participated in a group exhibition at the storied Martha Jackson Gallery in New York. It was in Paris where she would meet Arnold Rüdlinger, a meeting that would lead to her first major museum exhibition in Basel at the Kunsthalle in 1964. In 1962, the artist permanently relocated to Bern, Switzerland, where she would remain until her death in 2020.

In 2004, the Teruko Yokoi Hinageshi Museum was founded in Ena, Gifu by Teruko Yokoi’s lifelong friend Shingo Kamada. In 1982, Yokoi met Kamada at a train station while he was traveling through Switzerland. Yokoi offered him food and the ability to use her kitchen, and the two became friends. Kamada grew a deep appreciation for her work and vowed to purchase her paintings once he was financially able to. Kamada founded the successful confectionary company, Enakawakamiya, and established the museum next to the original location of his store. In autumn of 2023, Yokoi’s ashes were buried at the museum per her wish.

The establishment of the Teruko Yokoi Hinageshi Museum was followed by the creation of the Teruko Yokoi Fuji Museum of Art in Shizuoka in 2008. Owners of a papermill, the Kawaguchi family began to purchase works by Teruko Yokoi, and upon hearing of the museum in Ena, they were inspired to build their own museum for Yokoi.

Yokoi has held over ninety exhibitions beginning with the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco; Martha Jackson Gallery, New York; Galerie Kornfeld, Bern; and most recently, with Marlborough Gallery, New York. Her last major retrospective entitled Teruko Yokoi. Tokyo—New York—Paris—Bern was presented by the Kunstmuseum in Bern in 2020.