 Shuzo Takiguchi (1903-1979), poet and art critic, began to publish his poems in 1926, introduced Surrealism to Japan at the end of the 1920s, and corresponded with Parisian Surrealists such as Andre Breton in the 1930s.
In this period, international cultural exchange became very active. For example, while Takiguchi wrote an article about Surrealism in Japan for the combined number of the Parisian magazine Cahiers d'art, number 5-6 in 1935, his circle opened "Exhibition of Foreign Surrealist Works " in Japan in 1937 with the support of Parisian Surrealist group. In 1940 he published Miro, the first monograph on him in the world. Internationally minded, Takiguchi collaborated always with foreign artists, which was a characteristic of Surrealism. With this cultural exchange, he accumulated little by little the documents which were reduced to ashes by the Tokyo air raid in 1945. It was only in 1967 that he published Poetic Experimentation by Shuzo Takiguchi 1927-1937.
After World War II, he began to write art reviews in 1950, helped to organize many avant-garde exhibitions, especially the exhibition of Yomiuri Independants, and made a program of exhibitions by young artists at Takemiya Gallery from 1951 to 1957 (201 exhibitions). He supported many young unknown artists. As Japanese commissionner for Venice Biennale in 1958, he went to Venice and made afterwords a tour around Europe where he met with his favorite artists like Dali, Fontana, Tapies, Breton, Michaux and others. He made an iestimable contribution toward developing Japanese contemporary art.
Reluctant to write professionally as an art critic, Takiguchi held his first one man show of drawings in 1960. Since then, he showed his works of drawings and decalcomanias, and made books of poems and drawings, including To and From Rrose Selavy: Selected Words of Marcel Duchamp (1968) with Jasper Johns and Shusaku Arakawa etc., Handmade Proverbs to Joan Miro (1970) with Miro, and made also other books with Sam Francis, Antoni Tapies and Japanese artists. Those art works are evaluated highly. His collected writings Collection Shuzo Takiguchi have been published (in 13 volumes with 2 extra ones) between 1981-1998.
Noboru Onzo
Tama Art University, Librarian.
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