Shinkichi Tajiri
1923–2009 · Japanese-American sculptor, later Dutch
Shinkichi Tajiri (Los Angeles, 1923-Baarlo, Netherlands, 2009) was a sculptor of Japanese descent, born in the United States and later a Dutch citizen, who also worked in painting, photography and film. He belonged to the postwar generation of artists who sought in Europe a place to work away from the discrimination their community had faced in America.
Born in Watts, a working-class district of Los Angeles, to Japanese immigrant parents, he took his first sculpture lessons from Donal Hord in San Diego. After serving with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team during the Second World War, he studied in Chicago and, in protest at the treatment of Japanese Americans, left the United States in 1948. He settled in Paris, where he studied with Ossip Zadkine and Fernand Léger, and in 1949 he took part in a Cobra group exhibition in Amsterdam.
In 1955 he won a Palme d'Or at Cannes for his experimental short film The Vipers. That period also marked his close ties with the Cobra artists. In 1956 he moved to Amsterdam and in 1962 to the Scheres castle in Baarlo. He exhibited at several editions of documenta in Kassel and in 1959 co-founded the A'dam group. Later, between 1969 and 1970, he photographed the Berlin Wall, and in the 1970s he returned to the daguerreotype.
His legacy is most visible in the public sculptures in Venlo and in the honours he received in the Netherlands and Los Angeles.