Akira Yoshizawa
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Akira Yoshizawa (吉澤 章 Yoshizawa Akira; 14 March 1911 – 14 March 2005) was considered to be the grandmaster of origami.
Born the son of a dairy farmer in rural Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. He moved into a factory job in Tokyo when he was 13 years old. In the evenings he continued his education and became a technical draftsman, using the traditional art of origami to understand and communicate geometrical problems.
In 1937 he left factory work to pursue origami full-time. His work was creative enough to be included in the 1944 book Origami Shuko, by Isao Honda (本多 功). However it was his work for a 1951 issue of the magazine Asahi Graph that launched his career. His first published monograph, Atarashi Origami Geijutsu (New Origami Art) was published in 1954. In this work he established the Yoshizawa-Randlett system of notation for origami folds which has become the standard for most paperfolders. The publication of the book was followed closely by his founding of the International Origami Centre in Tokyo and a series of international exhibitions.
Yoshizawa acted as an international cultural ambassador for Japan throughout his career. He is credited with raising origami from a craft to a living art. In all, he created more than 50,000 models, of which only a few hundred designs were diagrammed in his 18 books. He pioneered many techniques, including wet-folding. In this technique the paper is dampened before folding, letting the folder create a much more rounded and sculpted look. This was considered by many to be the paradigm shift of sorts that allowed origami to become an artform, as opposed to a quaint oddity of folklore.
In 1983, Japanese emperor Hirohito named him to the Order of the Rising Sun.
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Akira, Yoshizawa |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Yoshizawa, Akira |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | origami master |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 14, 1911 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Tochigi Prefecture, Japan |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 14, 2005 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Ogikubo, Tokyo, Japan |
