Masako Takahashi Art for Sale at Auction

b. 1944 -

Masako Takahashi (born 1944) is an artist and writer based in San Francisco. She has exhibited in the U.S. and abroad, particularly in Mexico, where she has written extensively about the history of textiles. Takahashi was born in the Topaz Internment camp in Utah during World War Two. After the war her family rose to prominence as purveyors of Japanese arts and crafts with galleries in multiple American cities. As a high school student Takahashi won a scholarship to study at the San Francisco Art Institute; she continued on as an undergraduate through the early 1960s, producing vibrant abstract paintings influenced by her ethnic background and her instructors, which included Jimi Suzuki. As the options for making innovative modernist abstract paintings began to dwindle, and the space for post modern body art opened up, Takahashi turned to weaving and began to make intricate sculptures from her hair. These have been shown in the US, Mexico and Japan, at such venues as the Staar Library, UC Berkeley; Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; the Galeria San Miguel de Allende Guanajuato Mexico; Centraal Museum, Utrecht; Art in General, New York; Jack Fisher Gallery, San Francisco; El Instituto de Artes Grafica di Oaxaca, Mexico.