Morimono Kago or basket for the seasonal display of fruit and leaves, with a fitted silver otoshi that allows the basket to serve as a container for flowers. In a square, walled form descending to a circular base set onto a circular foot ring. Woven of split smoked bamboo, with stained split bamboo on the reverse, and stained rattan. Signed on the reverse with an incised signature by the artist: Shoko Zo or Made by Shoko (Hayakawa Shokosai V, who used the go or art name of Shoko from 1963 until his accession to the family title in 1977, 1932 – 2011). Showa 48 or 1973.

With the tomobako or original box, inscribed on the exterior of the lid: Shiho En Morimono Kago or Square Mouthed Seasonal Fruit Basket; and on the reverse of the lid signed: Shoko Zo or Made by Shoko, and sealed: Shoko. Note: here the artist uses a go or art name, a variation of the family name that employs an alternative “ko” character, transliterated as “ko.” With the tomogire or wrapping cloth, sealed by the artist.

This basket or a very similar piece was shown at the Nihon Dento Kogei-ten or Japan Traditional Crafts Exhibition in 1973, and is illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, number 373.

For biographical information, we are indebted to Koichi Okada’s article “The Lineage of Visionaries” in Tai Gallery’s catalogue The Hayakawa Shokosai Lineage: 150 Years of Artistry. Born in 1911, the eldest son of Hayakawa Shokosai IV, Shokosai V studied basketry under his father for fourteen years. In 1963, he adopted the go or art name, Shoko, and mounted his first one man show in 1965. Significantly, that exhibition sold out and foreshadowed the artist’s long and continued success. His father died in 1975 and he succeeded to the family title as Shokosai V in 1977. In 2003, he was honored by the Japanese government as Juyo Mukei Bunkazai Hojisha or Preserver of Important Intangible Cultural Properties (commonly referred to as Ningen Kokuho or Living National Treasure). A modernist indebted to his family’s rich classical tradition, Shokosai V was noted for dramatically modern, parallel construction, fine rattan knotting and the sophisticated Shokosai dye tradition employing bitter plum and alder bark.

Shokosai V sculpts a geometric tray for seasonal fruit. The architecture rises most obviously as four, thick walls around a square floor. It seems to float, a squared structure transitioning to round as it descends, its base sloping inwards to rest on a high foot ring.

For his materials, the artist chose a contrasting color palette of brown red-toned smoked bamboo and mottled black. By differentially polishing the smoked, rafter bamboo, Shokosai highlights the untouched, soot-blackened areas. Most obvious on the interior, this pattern occurs not just at the nodes. The diagonal slats on the outside vary in color and the contrast reappears in the stained rattan knotting, and on the treatment of the reverse. This choice of coloration reads as a reference to Mingei aesthetics, the polished and age-darkened faces of traditional tansu chests or the wood beams, doors and rafters of minka farmhouses.

Medium slats of bamboo wall the sides, arrayed in parallel, openwork construction and then bent twice at the top before dipping to the interior floor. On the outside, two bands of brown-stained rattan twining (nawa-ami) border the sides. Abutting each of these, runs a line of contrasting, black-stained rattan cross knots (juji-musubi). The cross knots repeat along the upper and lower edges of the interior walls. Narrow diagonals run between the twining borders on the exterior, creating movement and engineering additional support in a stretched version of lozenge plaiting.

Across the center face, two squared beams run in from the sides to cross in the center and support the openwork floor. At that epicenter, a single spiral cross knot (juji-uzumaki-musubi) swirls. Around it swing four arrays of bamboo slats, set on their edges and curving back from the center to each side.

Below the exterior walls, an angled plane slopes inward from the round edge. Pine needle plaiting (matsuba-ami) details the outer third of the plane, mat plaiting (gozame-ami) the remaining two thirds.

All rests on a contrasting, dark circular foot ring formed from a round stem of smoked bamboo split lengthwise, then matched together and bent into a round. Spiral cross knots (stained black, like the one on the central face) stud the exterior of the ring with texture while anchoring the overlapping sections one to another.

On the flat reverse, solid twill plaiting fills the foot ring. Shokosai stains the split bamboo differentially (or partially cleans away the stain) to create a stepped, diamond pattern of box within box, echoing the dark and light coloration elsewhere. A contrasting dark signature plaque (step-cut on either end to echo the surrounding plaiting) overlays the center.

With the original, fitted otoshi or water container for flower arranging, of hammered silver.

For other examples of his work, c.f. Robert Coffland’s Contemporary Japanese Bamboo Arts, pages 30 – 36.

An important, early work by one of the great bamboo masters of the 20th century.