Biography of Shinkichi Tajiri

Tajiri was born in Watts, a working class district of Los Angeles, the fifth of the seven children of the issei (first generation emigrant) Ryukichi Tajiri and Fuyo Kikuta who in 1906 and 1913 were emigrated to the United States from Japan. In 1936 the family moved to San Diego. When Tajiri was fifteen, his father died. In 1940, he received his first lessons in sculpture from Donal Hord. In protest at the treatment of its population during the war left Tajiri the United States in 1948. He came on 28 september of that year in Le Havre to and settled in the Montparnasse district of Paris where he had been on leave during the war. To november 1949 he studied with Ossip Zadkine, then to september 1950 with Fernand Léger and then a year at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. On 25 May 1951, he married Denise Martin, but the marriage was dissolved in 1954. He had in the meantime, the Dutch sculptor Jack Jack from Arnhem meet with whom he moved to Amsterdam in 1956. Established in 1962, the family, which by now had two daughters, in to Castle Scheres Baarlo. Jack died in 1969. Tajiri for the third time in 1976 would marry.
In 1949 came Tajiri in contact with the Cobra group and exhibited with them in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. His first exhibition since he had established in 1956 in Netherlands, took place on the outdoor place Hofwijck in Voorburg. There he exhibited along with Wessel Couzijn and Carel Visser, under the auspices of the new team '. In 1959 he founded, together with Couzijn Hans Verhulst, Ben Guntenaar and Carel Kneulman, the Group Amsterdam on. Tajiri was invited to participate in documenta II (1959), documenta III in 1964 and the 4. 1968 documenta in Kassel, Germany. From 1969 to 1989 was Tajiri Professor at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Berlin. On 25 June 2005, Tajiri named honorary citizen of the municipality of Maasbree and on december 7, 2007 he was knighted in the order of the Netherlands Lion, because of his exceptional commitment and the culture historical significance of its activities. On May 2, 2007 Queen Beatrix in Venlo revealed four images of Tajiri. The six-metre-high images are on either side of the city bridge of Venlo. This bridge, which replaces a bridge blown up during the war, serves as connection of the city centre and the heart of Blerick, and the images act as "guardians" of the bridge, and the bridge should protect against war and violence. In the courtyard of the Cobra Museum explained to Tajiri a Japanese Pebble garden. Shinkichi Tajiri got on december 7, 2008 the Dutch citizenship and died in 2009