The margins of the artwork have creases and contain small tears in several locations.

Takiguchi Shuzo (1903 - 1979) was born in Toyama City and learned about Western contemporary literature and art through Nishiwaki Junzaburo, a professor at Keio University, where he also studied and would return in 1925. From 1927, he started a series of poetic experiments inspired by the French poet, Arthur Rimbaud, which was later published as ‘Takiguchi Shuzo’s Poetic Experiment 1927-1937’ (Shichosha 1962).

As a poet and art critic, he transcended the boundaries of surrealism and was a great influence on the Japanese literary and artistic world. In 1959, he began “to feel an obstacle in writing journalistic criticism”, and began to abstain from writing activities, instead concentrating his efforts on ‘plastic experiments’ such as drawing and decalcomania. These works were based on the creative principles of surrealist ‘automatism’ and ‘chance’, and this style is most evident in Takiguchi’s decalcomania works. Produced by transferring ink to paper, the fantastical images have a dreamlike appearance that eliminates the intervention of reason.

“Shuzo Takiguchi” Tezukayama Gallery, 2014, p. 43