Burt Lancaster

Gyotaku is the Japanese art of making fish prints on delicate rice paper. The art reproduces the exact features and characteristices of each induvidual fish. "Gyo" translates to fish and "taku" translates to stone rubbing which refers here to fish rubbing. It began in Japan or China in the early 1800's as a means of measuring and recording a fisherman's catch.

I have attempted to express a variety of colors, textures and compositions through the unique art form, breaking traditional boundries in this historic medium.

Seven years of my childhood were spent in Japan where I did my first fish rubbing at 11 years old. My long standing love of nature and appreciation for the beauty of God's creations compel me of capture the brilliant and subtle colors, shapes, details and textures of the aquatic life he admires so greatly.

Burt has a consuming passion for the art of gyotaku and a destiny to produce the finest, most detailed and imaginative rubbings humanly possible. He hopes that those who experience his gyotaku artwork will have a greater appreciation for the magnificence of nature and of water creatures in particular.

Before becoming an accomplished and award-winning gyotaku artist, Burt was a wildlife artist, biology student, and Marine infantryman in Vietnam in the late 1960s. He makes his home with his wife, Gladys, in Tampa, Florida. The Lancasters travel extensively exhibiting gyotaku in fine art shows and galleries, and conducting museum seminars to teach children the art of gyotaku painting.