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In 1921, a second son (of eventually twelve children) was born to the family
of Toshiji Yoshimura. Toshiji was a leader in the bonsai world, one
of the top suiseki authorities in Japan, and owner of the Kofu-En Bonsai
Nursery, located in a Tokyo suburb. He would also be a founder of
the Nippon Bonsai Society.
His
father was a
samurai
and a renowned garden designer.
In 1924, the eldest son of Toshiji died in childhood, and the family bonsai tradition passed on to the three-year old named Yuji, who would one day leave his mark on the art in many places outside of Japan. 1 Yuji Yoshimura as a youth studied all the related traditional art forms of bonsai. He graduated from the Tokyo Horticulture School where he had studied bonsai, bonkei, and garden art. His family's Kofu-en Bonsai Nursery occupied him until his career was interrupted by five years of army service. Upon termination, he went back and assumed operation of the nursery, continuing his grandfather's landscape gardening work, and also becoming active in the Japan Young Man's Bonsai Association. In 1952, the thirty-year old Yoshimura collaborated with his friend and interpreter, a German diplomat and well known author of books on Oriental arts and crafts, Alfred Koehn, to give demonstrations and the first formal bonsai courses opened to the public and outsiders. Some five hundred foreign visitors were eventually taught by the pair. 2 In 1957, The Japanese Art of Miniature Trees and Landscapes by Yuji Yoshimura and Giovanna M. Halford was published (Rutland, VT and Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co.). Although there had been a few earlier books in English by this time, this was the first really comprehensive and practical work on the subject. It was received with excitement by those who were eager to learn classical bonsai. (Forty-three years later, the thirty-seventh printing would be made of what some have referred to as the "Bonsai Bible in English." The work has twenty-five color and 245 b&w photos and illustrations.) 3
The following year, Yoshimura was invited to come to the Brooklyn Botanic
Garden by its director, Dr. George Avery. While on the 1959 C. Stuart
Gager fellowship grant there, Yoshimura extended his teaching and lecturing
beyond the East Coast to also the West Coast and Hawaii. He returned
to teach at Longwood Garden near Philadelphia.
4
In 1960 Yuji Yoshimura spent two months in Australia making a lasting impression,
assisting the early teachers and students of the nascent art there, and
becoming Patron of one of the bonsai groups.
5
In 1962 Yoshimura began to teach classes at the New York Botanical Garden,
assisted by Edna L. Kane.
7
At the beginning of 1963, the Bonsai Society of Greater New York was founded by Yuji Yoshimura and thirteen enthusiasts. Jerry Stowell was elected the first president. Within three years there were 555 members, including 339 corresponding members in thirty-one states and several foreign countries. The club's first official show was held that October at the New York Botanic Gardens. 9
In March 1964 Yoshimura's wife and two daughters came from Japan to join
him at his American Nursery in Tarrytown, NY. There he had begun
importing containers and some bonsai from Japan and would eventually create
over a thousand fine quality bonsai from American stock. Muriel R.
Leeds began studying under this teacher. A winner of the Horticultural
Award of the Garden Club of America, Leeds was trained as an artist and
painter.
10
(Tosh Saburomaru served as educational advisor to Lane Books Co. on the Sunset Bonsai illustrated paperback. The book's first printing in March 1965 of 17,500 copies sold out in a month, and six thousand more copies sold in the next few months, the most successful of the magazine's eighteen low-priced gardening books. The tenth printing was made in April 1970).
The growing interest in bonsai received mention in a January 1966
Wall Street Journal
article. By this time there were over twenty clubs
in the U.S., half of them started in just the previous three years.
Yoshimura's Tarrytown, NY nursery is quoted as offering fully trained trees
from $3.50 to $3,000.
12
(In June 1967, members of the Bonsai Society of Greater New York, seventeen of which had participated in a two week Spring study tour of bonsai in Japan, helped found the American Bonsai Society in Cleveland, Ohio. By the end of the first year, there were ninety-nine individuals and fifteen clubs as charter members. Jerry Stowell was elected its first president.) 13 (In January 1968 "Bonsai Clubs International" was officially adopted to replace "Bonsai Clubs Association" due to many inquiries from English-speaking countries and associations with members outside of the U.S. Jim Ransohoff -- a student under Peter Sugiwara, Tosh, John Naka, and Yuji Yoshimura -- was elected president of the improved organization. Over 1,100 copies of the Dec/Jan 68 issue of the BCI magazine Bonsai would be distributed.) 14 As conventions and exhibits became popular, Tosh Saburomaru and Yuji Yoshimura began to be frequent demonstrators and lecturers from Sebastopol to Fresno, California. 15 The eleven page Bonsai in Sydney booklet by E.N. Marshall in 1970 (Ingleburn, N.S.W.: Combined Bonsai Groups of Sydney) included an article by Yoshimura. In the summer of 1971 Yoshimura led a bonsai tour of Japan.
The following year the first joint convention by BCI and ABS was held in
Kansas City, MO. Some four hundred persons attended the July 13-16
event. With an official theme of "Learning Together," the guest artists
were Yuji Yoshimura and Toshio Kawamoto, the major promoter of
saikei,
natural tray landscapes using less developed trees than required by bonsai and
which could be enjoyed by a wider audience.
(On Aug. 27, 1975, Toshiji Yoshimura died at the age of 83.)
On July 17 and 18, 1976, a special exhibition honoring twenty-five years of instruction by Yuji Yoshimura was held at his School of Bonsai. The featured trees for this came from the Muriel R. Leeds Collection. A Commemorative Album would be issued the following year with over a hundred photos showing many trees over the course of ten years of development. 17
The National Bonsai Collection Guidebook was edited by John Naka and Yuji Yoshimura in 1977.
Yoshimura
assisted his student William N. Valavanis, a teacher in his own right,
in launching the premier issue in the Spring of 1979 of the quarterly
International Bonsai.
The elder sensei also translated its first article -- "Creation of
Small Size Satsuki Azalea Bonsai" -- from the Japanese magazine source.
In 1982 Yoshimura conducted a teaching tour for the bonsai clubs in India.
In 1984 The Japanese Art of Stone Appreciation, Suiseki and Its Use with Bonsai was published by Charles E. Tuttle Co. The authors were Vincent T. Covello and Yuji Yoshimura. Yuji Yoshimura gave a demonstration and a workshop at the fourth annual Mid-Atlantic Bonsai Festival on April 25 and 26, 1987. The event for eight local clubs was held in North Haven, CT. The John Y. Naka Pavilion was dedicated in October 1990 to house the National Collection of North American Bonsai. Connected to the Naka Pavilion is the Yoshimura Center housing a lecture and workshop room. Two of Yoshimura's bonsai are in the National Collection. 19
The Second World Bonsai Convention, "New Horizons," was held in Orlando, FL from May 27 to 31, 1993 in conjunction with the BCI and ABS conventions. Saburō Katō, John Y. Naka and Yuji Yoshimura headlined for the over seven hundred delegates who attended. From November 3 to 6, 1994, a joint BCI/GSBF convention took place in San Jose, CA. (The Golden State Bonsai Federation had been founded in 1978 and its conventions alternated between northern and southern sites in the state.) Guests of honor were John Naka, Toshio Saburomaru, and Yuji Yoshimura. Enthusiasts attending were also from nine countries and territories outside the U.S. 20 In early March 1995, Yuji Yoshimura suffered a mild stroke while on lecture tour to North Carolina. Improving after a short hospital stay and discharged to his daughter's care near Boston, near month end he suffered a major stroke. On April 3, he successfully underwent neurosurgery to clean out a 95% blocked main artery. The following week he had surgery on the other artery which was 85% blocked. By May 6 he was well enough to attend a demonstration at the New England Bonsai Garden. 21 (In April 1996, Toshio Saburomaru passed away.)
On Christmas Eve, 1997, bonsai master Yuji Yoshimura passed away.
Having lived in the Western world for over thirty-five years, he had personally
observed the differences in the Eastern and Western cultures as reflected
by their arts. Although his students had been primarily of the United
States, he taught classical bonsai to thousands of students worldwide.
In that
Yuji
Yoshimura
was a Japanese bonsai artist who lived outside of Japan for
such a long span of years, he became a direct link between Japanese classical
bonsai traditions and the progressive Western approach. The result
was an elegant and refined school of bonsai adapted for the modern world.
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