Taku Higano: Calligrapher, Third Generation of Garyukai

Born in 1964 in Utsunomiya, Tochigi, Taku Higano grew up surrounded by the scent of sumi ink and took up the brush in early childhood. As the third-generation head of Garyukai and representative director of Garyukai Co., Ltd., he leads the institute while pursuing his own practice as an artist. He specialises in the ancient scripts, seal (tensho) and clerical (reisho), grounding each work in the etymology of characters from oracle-bone forms to the present, with deliberate philological and formal intent. A member of Nitten and standing director of the Yomiuri Shohokai, he has also served as auditor of the All-Japan Calligraphers Federation and deputy secretary-general of the Kenshin Shodokai, and teaches at Saitama Gakuen University. Beyond his own work, through lectures and commissioned pieces and performances for companies, he carries the calligraphy of Garyukai, now in its ninth decade, to the next generation and into wider society.