page_title: George Tsutakawa
section_title: College and the Army
hierarchical_section_title: George Tsutakawa / College and the Army
caption_attribution_description: Fountain of the Pioneers by George Tsutakawa at Bentall Centre in downtown Vancouver/Canada.
context_page_description: George Tsutakawa was an American painter and sculptor best known for his avant-garde bronze fountain designs.
  Born in Seattle, Washington, he was raised in both the United States and Japan. He attended the University of Washington, where, after serving in the U.S. Army during World War Two, he became a teacher. He rose to international prominence as a fountain designer in the 1960s and 1970s. During his long career more than 70 of his distinctive fountains - many of them still extant - were placed in public spaces.
  Tsutakawa is often associated with the progressive 'Northwest School' of artists, and is among the major, influential figures of modern Asian-American art.
context_section_description: At the urging of Broadway High art teacher Hannah Jones, Tsutakawa enrolled in the University of Washington, where he studied under sculptor Dudley Pratt, who guided him both artistically and in the craft of producing large sculpture. He also worked with Alexander Archipenko, a renowned sculptor who occasionally taught classes at the U of W. Tsutakawa paid his tuition by working at a grocery owned by his uncle, and by working summers at a cannery in Alaska, which gave him the opportunity to visit native villages, examine the carvings on ceremonial buildings and totem poles, and talk to carvers. He made drawings and linocuts of fish, fishermen, the canneries, and the dramatic Alaskan landscape. 
  He continued to paint and make prints (as he would throughout his life), but, when it came time to declare his major, chose sculpture. He received his BFA in 1937. Although he had paintings and prints in several exhibitions, and was actively involved in Seattle's arts community, he didn't immediately focus on a career in art, as he was helping his uncles with the family business.
  After the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, most of Tsutakawa's Japanese-American friends and family were interned or relocated to primitive camps in the interior western U.S., and the Tsutakawa Company was seized by the government. Tsutakawa himself, as a male, U.S.-born Nisei of military age, was drafted into the Army. While training at Camp Robinson in Arkansas his artistic abilities became known, and he was often asked to paint portraits of officers, or murals in officers' clubs. He was later assigned to duty teaching Japanese language at a Military Intelligence school in Minnesota. In his free time he visited museums in Minneapolis, Chicago, Boston, and New York.
  Tsutakawa also visited friends and family in the internment camps. During a visit to the Tule Lake camp in California he met and fell in love with Ayame Iwasa, a friend of his sister Sadako. Although she was ten years younger than he, she was, like Tsutakawa, a Nisei who had been educated in Japan. He soon proposed marriage. She eventually accepted.
  When the war ended, Tsutakawa returned to Seattle. Taking advantage of the G.I. Bill, he resumed studies at the University of Washington, earning his MFA degree. In 1947 Ayame and George were married at a Buddhist temple in Seattle. The first of their four children was born later the same year.
caption: Fountain of the Pioneers in Vancouver, BC
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