Pierrot and His Son

"Pierrot and His Son" brings the commedia dell'arte figure of Pierrot — the sad clown, the lovelorn fool — into Tajima's abstract vocabulary alongside a generational subject: the transmission of character or condition from parent to child. The dual figures may appear as paired abstract forms, their relationship implied by proximity and similarity rather than rendered literally. Tajima's interest in theatrical and literary subject matter was lifelong, even as his visual language remained resolutely abstract.