Though born in 1935 in Seto, Japan, Shinzaburo Takeda is often referred to as the "most Mexican" of Oaxaca artists. Trained at the University of Fine Arts of Tokyo (1957), he visited Mexico in 1963 and never left. In Mexico City he studied mural painting with Armando Carmona and Luis Nishizawa at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plasticas "San Carlos". He studied lithography with Francisco Vasquez at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Graficas. From 1965 to 1977 Takeda worked as a painter and graphic artist for the Mexican Museo Nacional de las Culturas. In 1978 he moved to Oaxaca, and began a new career as a professor of art at the Escuela de Bellas Artes de la Universidad Autonoma Benito Juarez de Oaxaca. Many of Oaxaca's most promising young artists, such as Fernando Olivera, studied with Shinzaburo Takeda. Since 1980 Takeda has been head of the Department of "Artes Plasticas" at the university. In his years in Oaxaca, Takeda has been able to pursue his longtime interest in the traditional cultures of Mexico, their ceremonies and festivals. They have become the inspiration of much of his work. Biographical information provided courtesy of Tony Fisher, Indigo Arts Gallery