Japanese Bamboo Baskets: Meiji, Modern, and Contemporary

Once neglected in the West, Japanese basketry now claims a loyal following among art lovers, collectors, and craftspeople in the United States and Europe. Japanese Bamboo Baskets: Meiji, Modern, and Contemporary acknowledges this growing interest by presenting a stunning array of the best baskets to come out of Japan in the last 150 years. The authors—both Japanese experts in the field—have selected superb examples from private and museum collections throughout the world. They focus on the breathtaking works by the masters of the traditional form — Rokansai, Shokosai, and Chikuunsai — as well as those of the leading contemporary artists, whose groundbreaking sculptural pieces are attracting ever-greater attention from the international art community.

Japanese Bamboo Baskets frames the pieces in a wealth of newly written material, beginning with a Foreword by pioneer collector Lloyd Cotsen. Masanori Moroyama, in-house bamboo expert at the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, contributes a compelling history of this forgotten art, while "spokeswoman for the artists" Masami Oguchi provides potent insights into the artists and their works. A trio of interviews with top artists, as well as essays by other voices in the field, round out the volume