"Kokufu Bonsai Ten", Part I
("National Bonsai Exhibition")
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Koku
Fu Bon
Sai Ten |
This Page Last Updated: July 31, 2010
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The Kokufu sho is a "trophy" as a simple shikishi board, used for paintings. It is gold-colored with kanji characters which read "Kokufu Prize." A monetary prize is not attached, but there is a certificate which often can then be hung in the owner's home. The shikishi board is often displayed with the bonsai when exhibited in other shows. It is common for the top Kokufu Prize bonsai from the February exhibition to be displayed along with the board at the Taikan exhibition the following November. (The latter is the "Great Viewing Exhibit" held in Kyoto. This outstanding, four-day national exhibit of bonsai is the largest and best of the late season shows, first held in 1981. This is another of the exhibits that is held for hobbyists, although many of the better trees have been styled and maintained by bonsai professionals.)
For the first-show of the double-show 2006 year, for example, three of the National Prizes were awarded. A Japanese five-needle pine 'Zuisho', a shimpaku juniper (Juniperus chinensis var. 'Sargenti' -- see photo below), and a chojubai (Chaenomeles japonica 'chojubai', dwarf flowering-quince) were most highly esteemed by the panel of sixteen award judges. For the second half, there were five National Prizes awarded: another chojubai dwarf flowering-quince, a Japanese five-needle pine (Pinus pentaphylla), a Chinese quince (Pseudocydonia sinensis), a Needle juniper (Juniperus rigida), and a shohin bonsai display. The bonsai displayed range from large specimens (up to about 120 cm or 48" tall) to the small shohin-sized trees (less than 25 cm or 10" in height). Although taking place in the dead of winter, nothing is forced to bloom or bud early for the show. The Japanese like to see their bonsai in their natural form. Therefore, the foliage of the Japanese yew, cryptomeria and Needle juniper will mostly be in the reddish winter coloring. And all deciduous trees are represented: true, the majority are still intricate silhouettes, but the early bloomers (literally) are covered in festive pastels. Some 260 trees are now displayed annually in the Metropolitan Art Museum (Tōkyō Bijutsukan) in Ueno Park in northeastern Tokyo. Every ten years the show is doubled to about 520 trees. (Since its opening in 1926, the museum has been very popular among citizens as a venue for public exhibitions by nationally and internationally renowned fine arts organizations. The museum was renovated in 1975.) [In 2011 and 2012 the show will be moving to the Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Trade Center, located near the Asakusa Kannon Temple in Asakusa less than a mile to the east of Ueno while the museum is remodeled/rebuilt.] The Kokufu show is housed on two basement floors of the Museum. The lowest level contains all the large bonsai, which comprise the majority of displays. The upper floor showcases the shohin and small bonsai. This grouping of trees by size prevents the overpowering of some bonsai by proximity to others. The bonsai exhibition is open to the general public and is always seen by crowds. Over 40,000 visitors annually were viewing the show in the early 1990s. (36,000 braved the heavy snows in 1994.) During the last few years, though, attendance has been as low as around 15,000. Between 30,000 and 35,000 people were expected to view the two-part show in 2006 -- the first part's attendance was estimated to be over 15,000 persons. In 2010, the attendance was about 17,000 people, but many foreign groups from Italy, France, Spain, etc. did attend. The admission price is Ľ1,000 (currently about 10.98 USD or 8.86 Euro).
Nearby the lake park is the Bai ten, the bonsai sales area set up to accommodate bonsai shoppers visiting the Kokufu Ten. Bai ten is a mostly uncovered lot that is centered around a three-story building called the "Green Club." This Ueno Green Club is where bonsai vendors, nursery owners, and potters from all over Japan of every stripe set up stalls selling their wares. Perhaps four dozen vendors are inside the building there and another five dozen are outside. As vendors pay a little more for exhibit space inside the Green Club, it is typically filled with higher-quality wares. Bai ten is one of the highlights of a bonsai tour to Japan. Not only are there hundreds of great trees, pots, tools and other bonsai paraphernalia on site, but they are all for sale. A 10-minute free shuttle bus trip from the museum runs continuously throughout the day to the "club" area. Sometimes an auction is also held. (The Tokyo Green Club in Ueno often has shows here on weekends throughout the year, with trees, pots, tools, books, and magazines for sale.) The Ueno Green Club is also where all the trees entered for the Kokufu Ten are brought about two weeks before the exhibit for judging. Only the top trees are selected by the thirteen show judges, each of whom has a list of all the entrees. This way the judges know that if there are, for example, perhaps twenty ume (Prunus mume, Japanese flowering plum) entered, they will be very critical on how each tree is evaluated, in contrast to a situation where if only a single pomegranate is entered, the judges might perhaps then make a few allowances so that a well-represented exhibit results. After the selection process is completed, the trees are then taken away and returned a few days before the show at the museum. Only professional bonsai artists may bring the trees, like "tree handlers." It costs the tree's owner the equivalent of about $200 to have a single tree pre-judged. If the tree is actually selected for the show, about another $600 fee is required for its entry in the Kokufu Ten about three weeks after the judging. Each professional artist is allocated a certain section in the show to display each of his customers' trees. Mr. Morimae, for example in 2006, had seven trees accepted. Once he got to the museum he saw the seven areas next to each other, and proceeded to set up his customers' trees there. Setting up the show is a communal effort, so after one's trees are unloaded and set up (with a little help from friends), the next few hours are spent helping other nurseries, for instance, complete their displays. Artists look for eye movement direction and tree species in arranging the trees. Usually an evergreen is positioned next to a deciduous or broadleaf tree. After each artist finished placing his customer's trees, Mr. Hiroshi Takeyama (b. 1941), the third and current chairman of the NBA (since 2003), made small adjustments. All the positions are numbered from 1 to about 265. After the final positioning was done, the show guide was completed because nobody knew the exact location of the trees until the last minute. The printer then produced the guide overnight. The NBA publishes a high quality catalog or photo book afterwards to commemorate each show (see below photos). Each album comes packaged in a slipcase box, the cover of which has a different photo than the album cover itself. Usually the trees are photographed at night during the show. Several stages are set up and each tree is brought there for photos. For a double-show year, like 2006, the show is closed for a day as the first round of trees is switched out, the second group is brought in, arranged, and a second show guide is finalized and printed. The show then resumes. The bonsai are displayed by the owner's name, not the artist who created them. It is very rare that a bonsai masterpiece has only one artist. Usually the last person who handled the bonsai receives all the accolades and the people who risked their lives to collect the trees, the people who cared for it and established it, and others who may have done some preliminary training do not. Only the last person who does something to the tree becomes "famous." (In Japan, the professional bonsai artists have their own exhibition -- Nippon Bonsai Sakufu Ten (Japan Bonsai Creator's Exhibition). In early January, their bonsai are displayed with the latest artist's name, not that of the owner. It is very common to have one bonsai displayed in the Sakufu Ten and then have it displayed in the Kokufu Ten with different names only a month or two apart. The Japanese have their bonsai on display to show the beauty of these wonderful trees. Of course most of the Japanese artists know who "created" the masterpiece, but it is the tree that gets the award. For the Sakufu Ten where the exhibition books are sold in January at the show, the trees are actually judged and photographed the previous October.) Master designer and artist Masahiko Kimura (b. 1940) worked on 50 of the 265 trees entered into the second half of the 2006 Kokufu Ten. The shimpaku juniper from the first half which was awarded a Kokufu prize had also been designed and displayed by Kimura for a client. The first American to have an entry selected for inclusion in the show was Doug Paul from Kennett Square, PA. His Japanese hemlock (Tsuga diversifolia) was being shown at the 2010 exhibition (see photo below). Doug is on the NBF Board of Directors. (This hemlock bonsai was recently purchased by Doug in Japan from Isao Omachi and will be going through the lengthy two year post-entry quarantine period before it arrives to The Kennett Collection.) Constantino Franchi of Italy had a Ficus titled "Made in Tuscany" in the 71st Kokufu Ten in 1997. That tree was subsequently adopted by Kunio Kobayashi for his collection. A California juniper (Juniperus californica) designed by American Ernie Kuo was donated to Prime Minister Obuchi and was displayed at the 74th Kokufu Ten in 2000. (This juniper has not faired well in the Tokyo area and is said to be nearly dead in a large wooden box at the Kato garden.) Polish artist Mario Komsta, an apprentice of teachers Nobuichi Urushibata in Shizuoka and Masahiko Kimura in Saitama for a few years, was a recent exhibitor. Mario had a Japanese red pine (Pinus densiflora) selected for the 80th Kokufu Ten in 2006. That tree was styled for a customer. And a number of other non-Japanese have assisted during their apprenticeships to Japanese bonsai masters in preparing trees for other showings. Many of the famous "Japanese" bonsai (Chinese quince, Korean Hornbeam, Pomegranate) often displayed in Kokufu Ten were originally imported from Korea, China, Taiwan, etc., either as field-grown or, less commonly, collected stock. From 1914 through 1933, the All-Japan Bonsai Exhibition was held annually in Hibiya Park in Tokyo. (Another large annual show during this period was the Zen Nihon Bonsai Ten, also in Tokyo. These displays were held from 1928 to at least 1931, and each was also commemorated with an illustrated show album of perhaps 80 pages in length.) Beginning in 1934, the Kokufu Ten succeeded the Hibya Park exhibit and it is now the oldest continuous -- except during World War II -- public exhibit in Japan. Author, editor and publisher Norio Kobayashi (1889-1972) was the driving force behind the establishment of the Kokufu Bonsai Society and the Kokufu Ten exhibition. The President of the House of Peers and miniature bonsai enthusiast, Count Yorinaga (Raiju) Matsudaira (1874-1944), was the society's first president. Ninety-six trees were in that initial exhibition. Because of a rapid increase in the number of bonsai enthusiasts in Japan in the early 1960s, the need to transform the private Kokufu Bonsai Society into a nationwide public organization became obvious. In February 1965 the Kokufu Bonsai Society was dissolved and reorganized to become the parent body of the Nippon Bonsai Association. Shigeru Yoshida (1878-1967), the former diplomat to London who had been the first prime minister in post-war Japan until 1954, was its first president. The NBA assumed the role of organizer of the annual Kokufu Bonsai Exhibitions. The association currently has more than 300 chapters nationwide with approximately 20,000 members and some 300 other members in 30 countries throughout the world.
(Initial material from
"The
Best Bonsai and Suiseki Exhibits in Japan" by Thomas S. Elias, originally on pg. 12 (of pp. 10-14 article)
of the May/June 2002 issue of Bonsai Clubs International's Bonsai Magazine); with some additional material
from Morita, Kazuya and NBA Editorial Staff "Bonsai in Japan," in Tsukiyama, Ted T. (ed.)
Bonsai of the World, Book I (Japan: World Bonsai Friendship Federation, 1993), pp. 89-90;
Bonsai Tonight's article "Green Club", and
"The Kokufu Gamble" by Cheryl
Manning, a revised and expanded version of an article that originally appeared in Golden Statements
magazine; plus substantial material from personal e-mails to RJB from William N. Valavanis, especially while
the latter was in Tokyo during the 2006 show. Exhibition re-location per e-mail from WNV 7 Jan 2010. And
material from the discussion thread,
http://ibonsaiclub.forumotion.com/announcements-f5/american-s-bonsai-display-at-kokufu-bonsai-ten-exhibition-t2266.htm.)
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The following was compiled
to provide an easy listing of which show took place in what year and vice-versa.
Several sources were studied and compared for this info. The show dates from 1934 through 1983 are per Valavanis' study of the NBA's 50th Anniversary book and later works. Two shows (Mar-Apr and Nov-Dec) in each of these ten years: 1934-1937, 1939-1942, 1948, and 1954. No shows in these four years: 1944-1946 and 1959. One show in Nov-Dec in 1938 and 1947; one show in March 1943; one show in December in 1949-1953, 1955-1958. One show every year in February since 1960. The record for attendance goes to grandmaster Saburō Katō (1915-2008) who, it is believed, was the only person to attend every one of the first 80 Kokufu Ten (there was not a No. 19) which had been held up to the time of his death (on the eve of the 82nd show). |
