(b Osaka, 28 April 1898; d Neuilly-sur-Marne, France, 23 June 1928). Japanese painter, active in France. He was interested in oil painting from the age of 17 and studied drawing at the school of the Western-style ( yoga) painter Rinsaku Akamatsu (1878–1953) in Osaka. From 1918 to 1923 he studied at the Tokyo School of Art. In 1924 he went to France and attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris. In the summer of that year he was introduced by the painter Katsuzo Satomi (1895–1981) to Maurice de Vlaminck, who strongly influenced his work. Saeki was also greatly impressed in the following year by the Parisian scenes of Maurice Utrillo. As a result the backstreets, bars and buildings of Paris became the principal motifs in his work, seen for example in a painting exhibited at the Salon d’Automne of 1925 depicting a shoe shop.