George Tsutakawa (Japanese: 蔦川 譲二,[1] February 22, 1910 – December 18, 1997) was an American painter and sculptor best known for his avant-garde bronze fountain designs.

As a big, dairy-fed American kid who spoke very little Japanese, George had trouble fitting in, and found comfort in art.

[3] After finishing high school and brief service as a reservist-trainee in the Japanese Army, Tsutakawa, 16, returned to the U.S. Now a Japanese-speaker, he enrolled in Seattle's Broadway High School, where he re-learned English and studied art, falling in with a group of progressive-minded young artists which included Morris Graves, Andrew Chinn, and Fay Chong.

[3] He also visited and informally studied with Kamekichi Tokita, Kenjiro Nomura, and other older artists from Seattle's vibrant Asian-American arts community.

[4] At the urging of Broadway High art teacher Hannah Jones, Tsutakawa enrolled in the University of Washington, where he studied under sculptor Dudley Pratt, who guided him both artistically and in the craft of producing large sculpture.

During a visit to the Tule Lake camp in California he met and fell in love with Ayame Iwasa, a friend of his sister Sadako.

An important influence on him at this time was a book, written by U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, which depicted obos, the ceremonial stone piles created by religious pilgrims in the Himalayas.

In 1954 he and Ayame bought a large house which became his studio and a regular meeting place for friends such as Paul Horiuchi, Mark Tobey, John Matsudaira, Johsel Namkung, and many others.

In 1956 Tsutakawa travelled to Japan for the first time in nearly thirty years, visiting an exhibition of his and Horiuchi's work at the Yoseida Gallery in Tokyo and reuniting with family members.

After two years of daunting mishaps, he and Jack Uchida, a Boeing engineer who would become his lifelong technical expert and assistant, finished Fountain of Wisdom, a tall silicon bronze abstract design suggestive of obos, totem poles, and pagodas.

Artist, public, and critics were all delighted with the work, whose fusion of Asian, Native American, and modern Abstract Expressionist elements was deeply evocative of the Pacific Northwest.

In the 1970s and 1980s Tsutakawa emerged as the world's preeminent creator of fountains, installing them in cities throughout the United States, Canada, and Japan.

[5] "For Tsutakawa, ultimately water stands in relation to humanity and to life as the great continuing cycle of all things," art historian Martha Kingsbury pointed out.

He often executed two or three fountain commissions a year, all while continuing to teach at the University of Washington and pursue his interests in other art forms.