Thank you for looking. Please visit my other listings of
contemporary and antique Japanese art.
Authentic Usaburo sosaku ("creative")
kokeshi from Gunma Prefecture, Japan, with the official Usaburo stamp. Made from
the praised Zelkova wood, which is highly regarded in Japan for its symbolic
spiritual meaning and as a beautiful material for woodcraft.
Height: ~6 inches (~18 cm)
Head diameter: ~2.6 inches (~ 6.6 cm)
Weight: 0.46 lbs (210 g)
About Usaburo Kokeshi
Usaburo is a highly
regarded artist family from Japan's Gunma Prefecture, the top producing area of
kokeshi in Japan. Kokeshi made in Gunma is called sosaku (or “creative”
or "modern") kokeshi, and is differentiated from dento (“traditional”)
kokeshi produced in the Tohoku district in northeastern Honshu. Creative
kokeshi is characterized by freedom from the conventional shapes of traditional
kokeshi with a round head. Sosaku kokeshi often depict little girls with bobbed
hair.
Usaburo Kokeshi has
grown to become an important kokeshi art atelier in Japan famous for its artistic,
stylish designs and the impeccable quality of its kokeshi.
Usaburo Okamoto, the
founder of Usaburo Kokeshi, was born in Shinto Village, Gunma Prefecture in
1917. After making handicrafts with artificial stones and metals, he started
making kokeshi dolls in 1950. Soon, in addition to painting with a brush, which
was the mainstream at the time, he created three-dimensional expression
techniques, such as engraving and pottery painting, creating the prototype of
Usaburo Kokeshi that continues to this day. The
basic designs of kokeshi developed by Master Usaburo feature this bobbed hair
and a plump round body. The simple lines of his kokeshi had the somewhat
archaic beauty of the Orient.
He devoted himself to research on how
to prevent wood from cracking, and succeeded in incorporating wood that was
considered unsuitable for processing into kokeshi dolls. Usaburo's
representative work "Kan-Tsubaki", which features his favorite
camellia flowers on Zelkova with beautiful wood grain, was given the honor of
being purchased by Emperor Showa. Usaburo combines machine techniques, artistic
handwork and symbolism to produce captivating, inspiring kokeshi characters.
#2