Okimono or sculpture in the form of a stylized giraffe looking skywards. Of uchidashi or hammered iron, inlaid in gold with whirlpool-like spots, and the iron surface lacquered. Signed with a chiseled signature on the underside by the artist: Shomin Saku or Made by Shomin (Kobayashi Shomin, 1912 – 1994). Showa 30 or 1955.

With the tomobako or original double box, inscribed on the exterior of the inner box lid: Aozora or (Titled) Blue Sky, and then: Tetsu no Uchidashi Kin-zogan Kirin Okimono or Hammered Iron Inlaid in Gold Giraffe Sculpture; and signed: Heian Shomin Saku or Made by Shomin of Kyoto, and sealed: Shomin (and with another as yet unread seal).

This sculpture was made for exhibition at the Nitten in Showa 30 or 1955, and it is illustrated in the Nittenshi, volume 18, page 507, number 145.

Born in Aomori Prefecture, Kobayashi Shomin studied uchidashi or metal hammering. He worked in Kyoto, and exhibited at the Nitten after the Pacific War. He became a Nitten judge, and his work won the Nippon Geijutsui Prize, the Minister of Education Prize, the Kikka Award, and the Hokuto Craft Prize.

Very few examples of sculptural iron hammering were made after the Pacific War, and this playfully stylized giraffe is one of the most spectacular. The scale is extraordinary and represents great skill on the part of the artist, who had to work at an increasingly difficult length as he raised the work from an ingot of iron. It speaks to us with the freedom of the era, a period in Japan when artists felt the restraints of the previous decades fall away. One senses an optimism and joyful quality in the work that vividly expresses the good of the world.