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Professor Toshihiro Katayama was born in Osaka, Japan in 1928. Due to World War II and the desolate situation in Japan, he became a self-taught artist and designer, who began working at age 17. In 1963, he became Art Director for the Swiss corporation Geigy. After three years in Europe, he received an invitation to teach and design at Harvard's Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts. In 1974, Harvard University and MOMA jointly published a visual poetry book, Three Notations- Rotations, on which he collaborated with Octavio Paz. In 1990, he became Director of the Carpenter Center and Professor in the department. A 250-page book of over 25 years of his students' work was published in 1993. He has held more than 30 one-man exhibitions. Currently he is interested in creating artwork in architectural space such as landscape design, sculptures, murals, and paintings as he has done for the Ohara Art Museum in Kurashiki, the Panasonic Headquarters in Tokyo, the JT Headquarters in Tokyo, and the Akasaka Prince Hotel in Tokyo. He mounted a farewell retrospective exhibition entitled "Toshi Katayama: Thirty Years at Harvard" in the Carpenter Center for the Arts.

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