User:Iloveokonomiyaki/Teiji Takai

Teiji Takai (高井貞二, Takai Teiji; born on February 5, 1911, died on June 26, 1986) was a Japanese painter.

Biography
Born in Osaka City, Takai moved to Kōyaguchi-chō, Ito District (now Hashimoto City), Wakayama Prefecture, when he went a primary school. He began to study oil painting while he was in Ito Junior High School in Wakayama. After graduating from junior high school, while working at his uncle Chōichi Inoue's Japan Air Transport Institute, he attended the Shinanobashi Institute of Western Painting, where he was taught by Narashige Koide, Jūtarō Kuroda, Katsuyuki Nabei, and others. In 1930, Takai moved to Tokyo. In the same year, at the age of 19, he was selected for the Nika Exhibition and subsequently became a Surrealist painter. He also made illustrations for Yasunari Kawabata's Lyric Poem (Jojōka) and other works. Takai later switched to figurative painting and won the Nika Special Prize in 1940. After the war, he participated in the establishment of the Action Art Association. Takai moved to the US in 1954 and settled in New York the following year. Takai died in Tokyo in 1986.