Born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1911. After leaving Tokyo School of Fine Arts, he moved to France with his parents. In 1931, he entered the University of Paris, where he studied philosophy, psychology, and folklore, while at the same time producing works with strong outlines and lots of primary colors, publishing his book of paintings, “OKAMOTO,” and actively participating in the Parisian art movement. However, due to the effects of World War II, he returned to Japan in 1940. In 1947, he became a member of the Nika Association and resumed full-fledged activities as a painter, advocating “polarism,” which views everything from subject matter to technique as opposites. He was also active as a writer, publishing his book “Art Today.”

While working in Japan and abroad, he became the theme producer for the 1970 World’s Fair in Osaka, where he unveiled Tower of the Sun. Throughout his life as an artist, he continued to produce a large number of works, crossing various domains, including painting, sculpture, photography, and writing.

His work, Children Time is a relief work created in 1975. In addition to his paintings, Taro Okamoto began creating relief murals around 1950. It was a means of expression that aimed to project colors and shapes contained in a flat surface into the space of reality. This work was created by first forming the piece out of plaster, then making a mold and pouring in FRP. These techniques and materials, which make it possible to create multiple identical pieces from a single mold, are in keeping with Taro’s philosophy of rejecting the one-size-fits-all approach to artwork. As the artist himself says, “The face is the universe, the other, and the whole,” the faces that appear in this work not only express joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure, but also symbolize abstract themes such as past, present, future, and time.