The American sculptor Shinkichi Tajiri (Los Angeles, 1923 – Baarlo, 2009) was an American-Dutch artist of Japanese descent. He was the son of Japanese immigrants and started his first sculpture lessons in 1940. During the war he fought in Europe, where he remained afterwards and eventually settled in Paris and later in Baarlo, North Limburg. From 1948 to 1949 Tajiri studied in Paris with Ossip Zadkine. Then at Fernand Léger and then at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. In the same period he came into contact with the Cobra group, with which he exhibited in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. After settling in the Netherlands in 1956, he exhibited with Wessel Couzijn and Carel Visser under the auspices of De Nieuwe Ploeg. He participated in several editions of the Documenta in Kassel. From 1969 to 1989, Tajiri was professor at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Berlin. He was considered an important Dutch sculptor with an expressive style of his own in sculptures, which can be seen in museum environments and in public spaces.
