Shinkichi Tajiri - Computerprint: Liefdesknoop I - 1993 - Sold

Computer print by Skinkichi Tajiri from 1993. Title: Love Knot. Edition: 17/25. Tabletop dimensions: H42 x W29.5cm. Depiction dimensions: H32 x W26cm The work is signed in the lower right corner by the artist. The authenticity of the work offered is fully guaranteed. A certificate of authenticity can be emailed upon request.




Send/pick up:
When purchasing, the work can be picked up in 's-Gravenzande (near The Hague (Scheveningen), Rotterdam and Delft and 5 minutes from the beach). The term for collection, if paid in advance, is very long, in other words, the buyer can collect the work weeks or even months later and, if possible, combine it with a visit to one of the aforementioned cities or the beach. The work can also be sent via PostNL. Our shipping days are Tuesday and Thursday.

Shinkichi George Tajiri (Los Angeles, December 7, 1923 - Baarlo, March 15, 2009) was a Dutch-American sculptor of Japanese descent (a nisei or second-generation emigrant from Japan). He also dabbled in painting, photography and filmmaking.
Life and work
Youth and education
Tajiri was born in Watts, a working-class neighborhood of Los Angeles, the fifth of seven children of issei (first-generation emigrants) Ryukichi Tajiri and Fuyo Kikuta who had immigrated to the United States from Japan in 1906 and 1913. 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.
War years
In 1942, Tajiri was imprisoned with many other Americans of Japanese descent, initially in the horse stables at Santa Anita Racetrack and then in the Poston "3" concentration camp in Arizona. A year later he volunteered for the army and was sent to Italy to fight. On July 9, 1944, he was wounded during an attack on Castellina, after which he was nursed in a hospital in Rome until December. In 1945 he was stationed successively in Marseille, Nancy, Reims, Heidelberg and Seckenheim. In Mannheim he had his first exhibition. In early January 1946, Tajiri was demobilized and joined his mother and sister in Chicago. He took a job at an antique dealer and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Wachter (1996), The Hague
The Netherlands
In protest against the treatment of his population during the war, Tajiri left the United States in 1948. He arrived in Le Havre on September 28 of that year and settled in the Montparnasse district of Paris, where he had already been on leave during the war been. Until November 1949 he studied with Ossip Zadkine, then with Fernand Léger until September 1950 and then for a year at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. On May 25, 1951 he married Denise Martin, but the marriage was dissolved in 1954. In the meantime he had met the Dutch sculptress Ferdi Jansen from Arnhem, with whom he moved to Amsterdam in 1956. In 1962 the family, which by now had two daughters, settled in Scheres Castle in Baarlo. Jansen died in 1969. In 1976 Tajiri married Suzanne van der Capellen for the third time.
In 1949 Tajiri came into contact with the Cobra group and exhibited with them in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. His first exhibition since settling in the Netherlands in 1956 took place at the Hofwijck country estate in Voorburg. There he exhibited together with Wessel Couzijn and Carel Visser, under the auspices of De Nieuwe Ploeg. In 1959 he founded the Amsterdam Group together with Couzijn, Hans Verhulst, Ben Guntenaar and Carel Kneulman. Tajiri was invited to participate in documenta II of (1959), documenta III of 1964 and the 4. documenta of 1968 in the German city of Kassel. From 1969 to 1989, Tajiri was a professor at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin. In the meantime he was commissioned by the city of Amsterdam to create a work of art for Noord: Meeting place.
On June 25, 2005, Tajiri was made an honorary citizen of the municipality of Maasbree and on December 7, 2007 he was knighted in the Order of the Dutch Lion, because of his exceptional efforts and the cultural-historical significance of his activities.
On May 2, 2007, Queen Beatrix unveiled four statues of Tajiri in Venlo. The six-metre-high statues stand on either side of Venlo's city bridge. This bridge, which replaces a bridge that was blown up during the war, acts as a connection between the city center and the Blerick district, and the statues act as 'guardians' of the bridge, protecting the bridge against war and violence.
Tajiri created a Japanese pebble garden in the courtyard of the Cobra Museum.
Shinkichi Tajiri received Dutch citizenship on December 7, 2008 and died in 2009 at the age of 85.
Initiatives for a museum
After the death of the artist, a number of initiatives were developed to set up a museum dedicated to the artist. For example, in 2009 there was a design by Rudi Fuchs for a Tajiri Museum in Venlo, which did not make it. In the following years, the family of the deceased artist negotiated with the municipality of Venlo about the foundation of a museum. In 2013, the municipality of Peel en Maas, together with Tajiri's daughters, presented a plan to establish a Tajiri center in Scheres Castle in Baarlo, where he had lived since 1962. Due to a lack of interest and money, the plans never came to fruition