George Tsutakawa

George Tsutakawa (蔦川 譲二, February 22, 1910 – December 18, 1997) was an American painter and sculptor best known for his avant-garde bronze fountain designs.

Born in Seattle, Washington, he was raised in both the United States and Japan.

He attended the University of Washington, where, after serving in the U.S. Army during World War Two, he became a teacher.

George Tsutakawa was born February 22, 1910, in Seattle, Washington.

His mother died of influenza in 1918; his father remarried.

The family lived with their maternal grandmother.

As a big, dairy-fed American kid who spoke very little Japanese, George had trouble fitting in, and found comfort in art.

His grandparents introduced him to traditional Japanese art forms such as Kabuki and Noh drama, Sumi-e painting, calligraphy, wood-block printing, ceramics, flower arranging, and the tea ceremony; at the same time, he studied European and American art, and developed a lifelong love of Western classical music.

He showed promise as an artist, but to his father's disappointment he was a mediocre student with little interest in joining the family business.

After finishing high school and brief service as a reservist-trainee in the Japanese Army, Tsutakawa, 16, returned to the U.S. Now a Japanese-speaker, he enrolled in Seattle's Broadway High School, where he re-learned English and studied art, falling in with a group of progressive-minded young artists which included Morris Graves, Andrew Chinn, and Fay Chong.

He also visited and informally studied with Kamekichi Tokita, Kenjiro Nomura, and other older artists from Seattle's vibrant Asian-American arts community.

At the urging of Broadway High art teacher Hannah Jones, Tsutakawa enrolled in the University of Washington, where he studied under sculptor Dudley Pratt, who guided him both artistically and in the craft of producing large sculpture.

He also worked with Alexander Archipenko, a renowned sculptor who occasionally taught classes at the U of W. Tsutakawa paid his tuition by working at a grocery owned by his uncle, and by working summers at a cannery in Alaska, which gave him the opportunity to visit native villages, examine the carvings on ceremonial buildings and totem poles, and talk to carvers.

He made drawings and linocuts of fish, fishermen, the canneries, and the dramatic Alaskan landscape.

He continued to paint and make prints (as he would throughout his life), but, when it came time to declare his major, chose sculpture.

He was named in honor of George Washington (whose birthday is Feb. 22nd).

His parents, Shozo and Hisa, were both born in Japan.

He was the fourth of nine children, all of whom, except for his eldest sister, were born in the U.S..

George's father and two uncles ran a successful import-export business, Tsutakawa Company, shipping mainly lumber and scrap metal to Japan, and general goods from Japan to the U.S.

George moved to his mother's hometown of Fukuyama, Japan, at age seven, along with his siblings, while his father remained in Seattle.

He received his BFA in 1937.

Although he had paintings and prints in several exhibitions, and was actively involved in Seattle's arts community, he didn't immediately focus on a career in art, as he was helping his uncles with the family business.

In the late-1940s Tsutakawa began teaching part-time at the University of Washington.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, most of Tsutakawa's Japanese-American friends and family were interned or relocated to primitive camps in the interior Western U.S., and the Tsutakawa Company was seized by the government.

Tsutakawa himself, as a male, U.S.-born Nisei of military age, was drafted into the Army.

While training at Camp Robinson in Arkansas his artistic abilities became known, and he was often asked to paint portraits of officers, or murals in officers' clubs.

He was later assigned to duty teaching Japanese language at a Military Intelligence school in Minnesota.

In his free time he visited museums in Minneapolis, Chicago, Boston, and New York.

Tsutakawa also visited friends and family in the internment camps.

During a visit to the Tule Lake camp in California he met and fell in love with Ayame Iwasa, a friend of his sister Sadako.

Although she was ten years younger than he, she was, like Tsutakawa, a Nisei who had been educated in Japan.

He soon proposed marriage.

She eventually accepted.

When the war ended, Tsutakawa returned to Seattle.

Taking advantage of the G.I. Bill, he resumed studies at the University of Washington, earning his MFA degree.

In 1947 Ayame and George were married at a Buddhist temple in Seattle.

The first of their four children was born later the same year.

He rose to international prominence as a fountain designer in the 1960s and 1970s.

During his long career more than 70 of his distinctive fountains—many of them still extant—were placed in public spaces.

Tsutakawa is often associated with the progressive 'Northwest School' of artists, and is among the major, influential figures of modern Asian-American art.