Torii Ippo

TORII IPPO (1930 – 2011)

RETROSPECTIVE E X HIB I T I O N

TA I M O D E R N

| S A N TA F E

1601 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe, NM 87501 505.984.1387

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taimodern.com

MY FATHER, TORII IPPO, was born in 1930. When my grandfather passed away in 1950, my father followed my grandfather’s wish that he become a bamboo artist and continue his father’s studio practice. My grandfather, Torii Hounsai (1889 –1950), lived in Tokyo for ten years assisting Iizuka Rokansai with dye and lacquer work. Hounsai enjoyed working for this famous bamboo artist. He then came home and started his own studio. My father and my mother married in 1957, and they had me and my younger sister.

For ten years, my father participated as one of five local artists in the Nishio Citizens Craft Arts Exhibitions sponsored by the mayor. A television reporter from NHK Broadcasting came to interview him at the inaugural show in 1978. After NHK broadcast this segment, Ippo received many inquiries from those who wanted to become his students. My father responded by explaining it would take them at least ten years to learn how to select the right material and split bamboo into the right sizes. All of the prospective students’ initial interest dried up after hearing this. For all 60 years of his artistic career, Ippo worked without any assistants. He did every step by himself.

The following year, at the same local show, the artist Ogawa Yoshikazu came to see the exhibition and encouraged Ippo to participate in a national competition. Up to that point, Ippo was making tea ceremony flower baskets for a living, but the idea of competing and testing his artistic talent interested him. My grandparents on my mother’s side lived in a mountain village surrounded by bamboo forests. Every New Year since that year, Ippo went to my grandparents’ village to harvest bamboo and experiment with making large-scale sculptural forms.

In 1980, my father successfully showed his first work at the Japan Contemporary Craft Arts Exhibition. The following year, his work was admitted for the first time to Nitten, the Japan Fine Arts Exhibition. He won many prizes — including the Tokusen in 2006. It sounds as if he had a smooth artistic career, but my father also had difficult times, such as when he failed to be accepted into Nitten for two consecutive years after having been admitted three times.

My father made many artist friends through these national exhibitions. He also started to show his artwork internationally in an American art gallery beginning in 1999. Thus far, about seventy of his artworks have left Japan. He also had many foreign visitors. A Smithsonian Museum tour group regularly visited his studio for several years beginning in 1998. Writing this essay brings back so many memories. My mother, my sister, my niece, my daughter and I all wore kimonos and served matcha tea to his foreign guests. Besides making his sculptural work, since 1994, Ippo also held an annual show of his flower baskets for local tea ceremony practitioners. After his passing, we kept up this family tradition in his memory.

All of us in the family remember watching our father creating his works in the studio and often felt him thinking about his next piece. He would say he was “having a conversation with bamboo” while he was facing the bamboo and waving it around as if he was trying to understand its feelings.

We would like to share these memories of him with you through his art. That is why we continue to show what he created in Japan and in the U.S. We are so glad and proud to share his work with you. n Okano Akiko Unfurling, 2002, 29 × 20.5 × 18 inches

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Mountain Peak, 1981 8 × 23.56­­­ × 18 inches

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TORII IPP O: F L OWING WAT E R

By Koichi Okada The first time I met Torii Ippo was in 1999 at the Mikawa Anjo train station. I was traveling with Rob Coffland, the founder of TAI Gallery, and Torii-sensei was waiting for us in front of the station. He said, “I’m so happy to see you again, Coffland-san” and firmly shook his hand with a smile. I was introduced

by Rob, and to my surprise, he shook my hand too. After thirty minutes of driving, I saw a fairly large sign reading “Torii Studio.” Mrs. Torii, a beautiful woman dressed in a traditional kimono, trotted over to Rob and shook his hand. She then politely bowed to me and we exchanged greetings. We sat down in their living room, which also served as the viewing room. Several dynamic sculptures depicting various forms of waves were on view. I felt as if I was surrounded by the ocean.

Torii’s studio was next to the living room; I saw many bamboo poles neatly lined up against the wall and was particularly intrigued by a model made of paper — a peek into his process of artmaking. Mrs. Torii served us sweets followed by bowls of matcha tea. We chatted for awhile, then stood up and started to look at each of the artworks he had displayed for us. Lunch was served in the middle of the viewing, we talked more, and at the end, as so often happened when visiting the Torii family, we lost track of time and had to race back to the station to catch our bullet train.

Torii Ippo was born in 1930 as the first son of Torii Hounsai, a well-regarded bamboo artist in the Aichi Prefecture who won many prizes from the early 1900s to the late 1930s for his flower baskets and offering trays. As a young boy, Torii liked to spend time in his father’s studio making toys out of bamboo scraps. Though Hounsai had several students who assisted him, he chose not to train his own son. We do not know why. However, in 1950, when Hounsai became ill, he called his 20- year - old son and asked him to become a bamboo artist and take over the Torii studio. Hounsai died shortly thereafter. Torii was not sure if he had the aptitude or artistic talent to take on this task but decided to give it a try.

Torii had to teach himself how to select quality bamboo, how to prepare the material and how to construct and weave a basket by closely studying his father’s baskets and honed his skills through trial and error. Six years later, Torii won his first prize, the Tokyo Governor’s award at the Japan Flower and Tea Ceremony Articles Craft Art Exhibition. After this, Torii did not submit his work to any other public competitions for many years. Instead, he focused entirely on making baskets to be used in tea ceremonies. Nishio Cit y, where he lived, is Japan’s top producer of matcha tea and had a large population of those who practiced the Chanoyu tea ceremony. In1980, after a 23- year absence from artistic competitions, Torii felt the time had come to create and share an entirely new style of art.

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Torii was fifty when he created his first bamboo sculpture Tabane (Bundling) and submitted it to the Nihon Gendai Kogeiten ( Japan Contemporary Craft Arts Exhibition), an annual competition held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum.

His work was accepted on his first try. One year later, Torii’s sculpture Mountain Peak (page 6) was again accepted at the Gendai Kogeiten. Shortly afterwards, in the fall of 1981, he created a piece titled Bond ( page 12) which was accepted into Nitten ( Japan Fine Arts Exhibition). Bond was a special piece. Torii explained that the inspiration for it came from observing the flow of water around wooden stakes standing in the nearby Yahagi River. Madake bamboo grew along the riverbank, and as a young boy he would watch the rafts delivering stacks of cut bamboo to his father. This early visual memory connected Torii to his father through bamboo.

After Bond, the flow and movement of water became the primary theme for Torii’s art. He created another piece Long Autumn Rains (page 20) inspired by the same memories as Bond, and successfully showed it at Nitten in 1984. As the Yahagi River flows into Mikawa Bay and the Pacific Ocean, Torii’s interest in flowing water led to the birth of his famous Wave series. With that body of work, Torii established himself as one of bamboo art’s most creative and successful sculptors.

Spring Surf ( page 18) would be the last major piece Torii created before his death in 2011.

When I visited him in the hospital, he greeted me with his big smile, the same smile he showed me every time I had visited him since 1999. One of his daughters later shared with me that, toward the very end of his life, while lying in his hospital bed, her father would move his hands as if he were weaving bamboo. Torii Ippo had dedicated his life to bamboo. How fortunate I am to have known this artist.

In this retrospective show, viewers can see Torii’s journey. The water flowing from a mountain and running into a river; the river water flowing into the ocean, creating many forms of waves.

Each wave he created expresses the life and story of this special artist.

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Bond, 1981 17.5 × 24.75 × 13.5 inches

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Wave Path, 1994 10 × 39.25 × 15.75 inches

Distant Wave, 2009 22 × 26 × 19 inches

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Spring Surf, 2011 29.25 × 28 × 17 inches

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Long Autumn Rains, 1984 13.5 × 22.5 × 18 inches

Floating Clouds, 1996 15.5 × 12 × 7.75 inches

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Against the Current, 1989 13.5 × 25.5 × 20.5 inches

Sounds of the Sea and Shore, 2007 20.75 × 26 × 18 inches

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Midair, 2007 20.5 × 21 × 15.25 inches

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Amazing Wave, 1994 23 × 32.75 × 15 inches

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Above the Clouds, 2011 17.5 × 18.5 × 12 inches

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ARTIST STATEMENT I found a catalog when I was rearranging my bookshelves the other day. It was an exhibition catalog of treasures housed in Nara’s Shosoin Treasure House. It was the second public exhibition after the war of these national treasures, displayed at Ueno’s Tokyo National Museum in 1959. At that time, after eight years, I was still a novice to this craft and wondering if I should continue. That fall, I went to Tokyo to see business associates and visit museum exhibitions. By chance, I went to see this exhibit and it shaped my career.

As I browsed through this dear catalog, my eyes stopped suddenly on a picture of a bamboo basket. I can still visualize this work. It is a rather flat shaped morikago style basket. The twill plaiting of the bottom curves upward in a patterned weaving technique. Its walls are mat plaited up to the rim; then, arrowroot vine is wrapped around bundles of three bamboo strips to finish this work. This was said to be used as a flower- offering basket. According to the catalog, the basket was used during the first memorial service of Emperor Seimu in 757 AD. There is no doubt that this basket, which has remained in perfect shape for well over 1000 years, has the mystic power to charm those who see it. Out of all the treasures housed in the Shosoin, this basket remains my favorite. It determined my vocation as a bamboo artist. Looking at this catalog brought back to me the memories of forty-some years ago. n Torii Ippo 1999

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TORII IPPO (1930 – 2011) Born in Aichi Prefecture, Japan EXHIBITIONS + ACCOLADES 1957 Winner of Tokyo Governor’s Award at Japan Flower and Tea Ceremony Articles Craft Arts Exhibition 1980 Admitted to Japan Contemporary Craft Arts Exhibition for the first time (thereafter admitted 29 times) 1981 Admitted to Nitten ( Japan Fine Arts Exhibition) for the first time (thereafter admitted 27 times) 1982 Winner of Chunichi Newspaper Award at Japan Contemporary Craft Arts Exhibition,Tokai Division 1987 Became a full member of Japan Contemporary Craft Arts Association

Winner of Contemporary Craft Arts Award at Japan Contemporary Craft Arts Exhibition 1988 Received Nishio City Cultural Merit Award 1991 Winner of Japan Contemporary Craft Arts Member’s Award at Japan Contemporary Craft Arts Exhibition 1992 Artists of the Tokai Area, Aichi Prefecture Participated in Japanese Contemporary Craft Arts Exhibition in Germany 1993 Judge at Japan Contemporary Craft Arts Exhibition 1994 Judge at Toyota Citizen’s Art Exhibition 1996 Judge at Japan Contemporary Craft Arts Exhibition 1997 Judge at Seto Citizen’s Art Exhibition Judge at Nishio Citizen’s Art Exhibition 2000 Winner of Chunichi Newspaper Award at Japan Contemporary Craft Arts Exhibition,Tokai Division 2001 Bamboo Fantasies, TAI Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

Meet the Masters, TAI Gallery, Santa Fe, NM 2003 Shared Passion: Sara & David Lieberman Collection of Contemporary Ceramics and Craft,

ASU Art Museum, Tempe, AZ 2004 Exhibited at the Hand Workshop Art Center, Richmond, VA 2005 Weavers of Wonder: Bamboo Artists from Japan, Naples Museum, FL 2006 Power & Delicacy: Master Works of Japanese Bamboo Art, TAI Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

Hin: The Quiet Beauty of Japanese Art, Grinnell College, IA; traveled to Chicago Cultural Center, IL Exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, M A Recipient of the Tokusen Prize at the 38th Nitten 2007 Masters of Bamboo: Japanese Baskets and Sculpture from the Cotsen Collection, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA 2008 New Bamboo: Contemporary Japanese Masters, Japan Society, New York, NY

Forward Thinking: Building the MAD Collection, Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY 2009 Many Shapes of Bamboo III, Oita Prefectural Art Museum, Japan 2011 Beauty in All Things: Japanese Art and Design, Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY 2013 Fired Earth, Woven Bamboo, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, M A 2016 Discovering Japanese Bamboo Art: The Rusty & Ann Harrison Collection, Herron School of Art & Design, Indianapolis, IN 2017 Japanese Bamboo Art: The Abbey Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

Masterpieces of Japanese Bamboo Art, TAI Modern at Joan B. Mirviss LTD, New York, NY 2018 Hanakago: The Art of Bamboo and Flowers, Portland Japanese Garden, OR

Masters of Bamboo: Japanese Baskets from the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco,

Suzhou Museum, China MUSEUM COLLECTIONS Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University, Bloomington, IN Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY Mint Museum of Craft & Design, Charlotte, NC Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens, Delray Beach, FL Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, M A Nishio City Museum, Japan Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA Portland Art Museum, OR 36­­­ de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA