About Akira Yoshizawa Books
Born in 1911, Akira Yoshizawa is the father of modern origami. The publication of his first collection of models in the early 1950s caused a major sensation. In 1954, he founded the International Origami Centre in Tokyo. In 1955, his original works were exhibited for the first time at a show in Amsterdam, an enormously successful event that introduced him to the West. It was during these years that he came up with a system of notation based on a series of symbols and graphic signs indicating various types of folds and thus created a method that was later adopted by many origami artists and is still in use today. In subsequent decades Yoshizawa folded and taught origami, published books on the art, and participated in innumerable events on an international scale. As his fame spread throughout the world, he came to be seen as the most distinguished representative of the art, a pioneer of many techniques used in modern origami. Yoshizawa died in 2005, on the day of his 94th birthday. Preface: