Akira Yoshizawa
Artist
Date Of Birth:
14 March 1911
Date Of Death:
14 March 2005
Place Of Birth:
Kaminokawa, Japan
Best Known As:
The father of modern origami
Akira Yoshizawa died on his 94th birthday as the world’s most famous origami artist and the man who made folding paper an art form. He began his career as a teen in a machine tool factory, then as a technical draftsman. Asked to teach junior employees geometry, Yoshizawa demonstrated with origami and it changed his life. He gave up his career in the late 1930s and devoted himself to folding paper, making a living just to survive. Yoshizawa went on like that his entire life, although after the mid-1950s he became increasingly famous for his artistic representations through origami, eventually having exhibitions all over the world. He is famous for developing the method of “wet folding,” and for devising the wordless notation system still used in origami design. Yoshizawa’s books Atarashii Origami Geijutsu (1954) and Origami Dokuhon (1957) were highly influential and spread the gospel of origami worldwide. Yoshizawa estimated he made more than 50,000 works, and he didn’t sell any of them.
4 Good Links
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2005 NYT obituary
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The Guardian has a brief bio and obituary
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Incredible background on Yoshikawa’s influence in Europe
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Bio with photos and career details from an origami site
See also:
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