Shuzo Fujimoto’s Biography

Shuzo Fujimoto at a table, with some models, in 2006 (image courtesy of Robert Lang)

In an earlier post, I mentioned working on a biography of Shuzo Fujimoto. Now, it is my pleasure to announce that the biography is mostly ready and available to everyone at the CfC site.

As far as I’m aware, this is his most complete biography to date. I have gathered information from multiple sources, including his books, articles in origami magazines, but first and foremost, first-hand accounts of his family and people who met him personally. Whenever possible, I cross-checked the facts since sometimes different sources gave differing accounts of some details. I was quite surprised at how little information about Fujimoto was to be found in publicly accessible sources, so this project was more research than compiling already available information.

Due to the sparseness of printed materials, I relied on many peoples’ help to gather and check the necessary information. In particular, I would like to thank, in alphabetical order:

• Gilad Aharoni, for helping me identify a number of Fujimoto’s models
• David Brill, for information, diagrams, pictures, and more
• Wojtek Burczyk, for helping me compile a complete list of Fujimoto’s books
• Hitoshi Fujimoto, Shuzo Fujimoto’s son, for providing lots of information, pictures, information about books, and more
• Ilan Garibi, for hosting the biography at CfC site, helping me get in touch with Fujimoto’s family and friends, and more
• Robert Lang, for providing me with pictures of Fujimoto, and information about his books
• Satoko Saito, for lots of first-hand information
• a number of other people not mentioned here by name who helped in various ways

While the biography is mostly ready, I will update it if new relevant facts come to light. As mentioned in previous post, I’m working on more Fujimoto-related things this year, so stay tuned for updates: there will be more announcements, and more helpers revealed, when the time comes.

On a last note, Fujimoto’s biography is part of a larger project, the Old Masters series, also hosted by CfC. You can find there biographies of about ten great origamists, with more to come. I hope this page becomes the standard reference that you can point people to when they ask e.g. who Frank van Kollem was.