Professor Nobuo Tsuji
Professor Tsuji entered the world of the fine arts as the result of a vision. Born in 1932 into a doctor's family in Nagoya, he too had intended to practise medicine when he enrolled as a student at Tokyo University. However, in the course of his first year he came down with typhoid, and in the resulting delirium saw himself in terms reminiscent of Munch and van Gogh. The experience impelled him to change his direction in life, and he switched to the study of art history.

Though attracted to European art, he decided to concentrate on Japanese, mainly because it was not at that time a popular subject, and interested him by reason of the problems it offered. After taking his M.A. from Tokyo University, he carried out research at the Tokyo National Institute of Cultural Assets, going on to fill professorships at Tohoku University, Tokyo University, and the International Institute of Japanese culture. He has also worked as Head Curator at the Chiba Prefectural Museum of Art, and is currently President of Tama Art University.

Professor Tsuji has published extensively, with a concentration on the subjects of ornament, play and animism in Japanese art. His Franklin D. Murphy Lectures at the University of Kansas have been published under the title Playfulness in Japanese Art (Spencer Museum of Art, 1986), a copy of which he has kindly presented to the Society.