In 1914 Naoya Takei left his father’s silk farm in his hometown and moved to Tokyo. One year later he was admitted to the sculpture class of Tokyo Art School. In 1918 he was awarded first prize at the Inten exhibition and subsequently graduated from Tokyo Art School. In 1924 Takei went to France and lived in the same village as Japanese sculptor Takashi Shimizu and in Paris for three years. There, he became a student of French sculptor Antoine Bourdelle and brought a modern French influence into Japanese sculpturing. In 1932 he joined the Japan Art Academy Group and in 1936 formed the Japanese Sculptors Association. Aged only 1947, he died suddenly at the University of Tokyo Hospital of typhoid.
Japan