Kakuzō Tatehata

Kakuzora Tatehata (Japanese: 建畠覚造 Hepburn: Tatehata Kakuzora, April 22, 1919 – February 16, 2006) was a Japanese sculptor. He was a leading figure in promoting abstract sculptures in Japan after the Second World War. He incorporated bronze and all kinds of materials such as iron, aluminum, plastic, acrylic, cement, etc. In the 1980s he started to work with plywood.

Biography Tatehata was born in Shiroyama, Wakayama (now Aridagawa) on 22 April 1919. He was the eldest son of sculptor Taimu Tatebashi. He graduated from the Tokyo Art School (now Tokyo University of the Arts) sculpture major in 1941, exhibited at Nitten and received a special recognition.

He was interested in the relationship between the entities that compose the sculpture and the space that does not take advantage of it. He shifted from academic concrete sculpture to avant-garde abstract sculpture. In 1950 he was influenced by a sculpture with a hole in the body by the abstract sculptor Henry Moore,

On 16 February 2006, he died of heart failure at the age of 86.