Description

I am a Basketcase. Perhaps put more accurately, I am a basket collector. I collect Japanese bamboo baskets meant for flowers for tea ceremony and some ikebana. The collection ranges from utility baskets to art baskets like the ones shown. I have been collecting for the better part of two decades with my wife, who uses them in her work as an ikebana teacher from time to time.

I am posting this system inspired by a thread asking for pictures and I thought... why not? I enjoy studying the work and tradition of baskets a great deal, and think it is probably rare enough a hobby that not many people on Audiogon will have had much exposure, so perhaps someone else will view a few examples posted here and decide to look into it further, which might at some point provide some support for active artists so that they may continue the craft tradition to the next generation.
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    • Tanabe Chikuunsai I Japanese style 'karamono'
    A piece, most likely dating from the period 1920-1930. Finely-done cross-hatch woven sooted bamboo, with 'root bamboo' rim with rattan knotting.
    • Tanabe Chikuunsai I Sukashi-ami
    Fine, Chinese shape, super-fine lacquered bamboo strips (about 1mm wide, and 0.2mm thick), with carved lacquered bamboo handle. This piece was probably made in the 1915-1925 timeframe, and is a fine example of its type. Chikuunsai I's sukashi-ami weaving technique is unsurpassed to this day. This basket is a bit more than 16" high and weighs less than 2.5 ounces.
    • Tanabe Shochiku 'Experimental Basket'
    This basket was made by Tanabe Chikuunsai II before he took the name from his father. Before he became Chikuunsai he used the artist name Shochiku ("Little Bamboo"), for several years in the mid 1930s. He took the name Chikuunsai upon his father's death in 1937, and held it for close to 50 years before passing it to his son who became Chikuunsai III, the currently active Chikuunsai. His own son has taken up the mantle and works under two names - his own, Tanabe Takeo, for modern art works, and the name Tanabe Shochiku for his works in the traditional genre. The youngest Tanabe tours internationally to exhibit and make presentations. This basket is 'experimental' because it is made with aspects which were quite different from Kansai area and Chikuunsai family-style baskets. The long splines are of un-stripped bamboo, showing the skin and using the nodes as features. The asymmetric node placement is deliberate, creating a jazzy counterpoint to his normal baskets which would have shaved part of the node and made the node placement highly ordered. In addition, the wrapping at the basket's mouth and method of fixing the handle (not shown) are very much reminiscent of Iizuka family styles. Every now and then these study pieces were done as artists tried to understand the techniques and traits of their rivals, but they were rarely signed and rarely made it out of the studio because in some sense they 'betrayed' the artist's sense of experimentation with others' techniques.
    • Tanabe Chikuunsai II Suehiro
    Suehiro means 'morning glory shape' in Japanese, and was a reasonably popular shape in the late 1930s during wartime as for Japanese the shape evoked traditional elements while the design was extremely modern. It is likely that this piece was made somewhat later (likely in the late 40s to early 1960s), nevertheless it is an extremely modern shape and design, and would not be out of place in a modern art gallery.
    • Sakaguchi Sounsai Geometric Basket
    This basket made of sooted bamboo is made of solid pieces which are split lengthwise at the ends so the part above the 'waist' appear to be more numerous than the bottom half. Sakaguchi Sounsai studied basketry under Tanabe Chikuunsai I and made the basket which co-won the first prize at an officially sponsored art exhibition in Japan which featured bamboo works alongside other craft art works in 1929 (much to the chagrin of Iizuka Rokansai). Sounsai is one of my favorite artists of the early 20th century because of his skill in manipulating bamboo, and his selection of materials. This basket dates from the 1930s (about 14" high).
    • Maeda Chikubosai I 'Karamono'
    This basket made by Maeda Chikubosai is extremely representative of his technique. He worked from the late 1890s through the late 1920s to early 1930s in Osaka. He had several rich merchants as patrons and made many baskets and pieces for the sencha tea ceremony, much like Tanabe Chikuunsai I and Iizuka Hosai and Rokansai. This piece shows a variety of weaving and wrapping techniques. At some point between 1912 and 1920 he worked quite closely with Tanabe Chikuunsai.
    • Suzuki Gengensai Japanese style 'karamono'
    Suzuki Gengensai came from a line of basketmakers and craft artists in the Kansai area. This basket comes from the 1925-1940 timeframe, and features an extremely interesting handle - the bamboo culm has been shaved/smoothed, and then bent at sharp angles. In fact, it is eminently possible that Gengensai ordered the bamboo grown like this, but it is more likely that it was bent using heat. Gengensai (also known as Gangansai) was deeply involved in tea ceremony-related craft art - perhaps more concentrated in that area than any other well-known Kansai basketmaker of his time.
    • Iizuka Hosai II Tea Chest
    This piece was made in the 1920s. It is not clear when it was made, though the carved signature suggests it was signed in the late 1920s, after his younger brother Rokansai had fully split from his brother's atelier. That said, the work from this piece is far more like that of his brother than it is like Hosai II's own work. Hosai II (or his workshop) made a very similar piece submitted to the 1925 World Industrial Arts Exhibition in Paris, where it won a prize. This piece was either made by his brother earlier, then copied for the 1925 Exhibition, or it was made by his brother after the 1925 exhibition. Given the timing of their split and the fact that Rokansai used his own signature in the later years while working at brother Hosai's atelier would suggest it was made earlier, left unsigned, then signed later and sold. While not strictly a basket, it was made by a basketmaker for the tea ceremony and is probably the prize in my collection.
    • Iizuka Hosai II Lozenge Mouth Basket (by Kinseki)
    This basket was made in the atelier of Hosai II, and signed with the name of Hosai, but it was made and signed by one of the better student/disciples, Nakata Kinseki. It was probably made in the very late 1920s or perhaps the early 1930s. We know it is Kinseki because of the extremely distinctive signature etching. I find this basket interesting because of the round base and lozenge-shaped mouth. This basket is representative of Iizuka family basket-making because of the use of the 'masawari' splitting technique (radial splitting of the bamboo culm).
    • Iizuka Hosai III Large Sooted Bamboo Basket
    This basket is signed Hosai III by Hosai II's younger brother Rokansai (please see explanation in other Hosai III basket description). The piece is very large and dynamic, and uses extremely difficult to work-with sooted bamboo from the roof lining of old Japanese farmhouses. The handle is made of a single large piece of rattan which has been split in half lengthwise, then paired with its other half, and twisted (with 'extreme prejudice') to form a kind of rope. Rokansai described the three kinds of baskets as 'Shin', 'Gyo', and 'So' with So being the most difficult to make. 'Shin' is the most formal type of extremely delicate weaving, for exhibition and 'formal' works. 'Gyo' is slightly informal, but still with strongly formal references. 'So' is free form and moving. This is 'So.'
    • Iizuka Hosai III 'Sedori' Stripped Back Basket
    This basket was made by Hosai II's younger brother, Iizuka Rokansai. At some point in the very late 1910s to the early 1920s, he was expected to take the Hosai name and become Hosai III. Very few baskets are signed using that name. He subsequently signed baskets Rokansai and split with his brother on less than excellent terms it is said. This basket has a cross-weave of what appears to be two-toned bamboo. In fact, it is bleached bamboo strips, which have had the middle of the outer skin stripped off with a knife (leaving only the node fully 'white'), then lacquered and wiped so that the center takes on a dark red/brown color. This piece then has a variety of interesting small bamboo knotty culms used to make the handle, wrapping, and base. The base is formed hexagonally, and the basket is woven upwards to make a round rim. One of my favorite pieces.
    • Iizuka Rokansai 'Hineri' Weave Basket
    Iizuka Rokansai studied under his father and his older brother, becoming a master basketmaker by the time he was 16, leaving for school and studying painting but coming back to be a basketmaker. He strove to make the art what it became, and is widely viewed among basket connoisseurs as the most influential of Japanese basketmakers. This basket uses a very simple weave where the thin strips are twisted completely again and again to form the body of the basket. This too is a 'So' piece, and the 'syncopated' wrapping around the rim is classic Rokansai.
    • Yokota Hosai Sooted Bamboo Wavy Rim Basket
    This basket was made by Yokota Hosai, also known as Yokota Minesai (the Hosai characters can be pronounced either way, but are different than the Hosai in the Iizuka family). He came from Ehime Prefecture, was a soldier in the Imperial Army during WWII, and after the war moved to the southern Kanto area (around Yokohama) to pursue basket-making. He is one of the most creative basketmakers out there - perhaps not technically as strong as Rokansai, but perhaps his equal in creativity, and certainly more interested in challenging the boundaries of his art than most of his contemporaries (or basketmakers since). Relatively little is known of this basketmaker, though he was strongly influenced by Kanto/Iizuka artists, and studied under at least one of them. The quality of his bamboo, and his technique in making difficult-to-use sooted bamboo do what he wanted was unsurpassed. One of my favorite basketmakers. This basket likely dates from the 1950s-1960s.
    • Iizuka Shokansai Tabane-ami
    This basket was made by Iizuka Shokansai in the mid 1970s. The tabane-ami (layered bundle weaving) technique was originally used a thousand years ago in baskets made for food offerings at Shinto shrines. The technique was re-introduced by Shokansai's father Iizuka Rokansai or possibly by Hosai II (or by Rokansai while working in his brother's atelier). It is formed by making 8 bundles of flat strips (14 strips to a bundle in this case) which are 2mm wide by about 0.3mm thick. The bundles themselves are then woven in an elaborate design, making for '8 windows' around the largest part of the basket. In certain places the bundles are fanned out to give a more solid surface, ending in a rim structure which is finished with fine rattan knotting/weaving. Iizuka Shokansai was active in the period from the late 1940s through about 2000. He was named a Living National Treasure in the early 1980s, the third to be so named (many of the earlier basketmakers featured in this 'system' passed away before the Living National Treasure designation was introduced in the late 1950s).
    • Matsumoto Hafu Twisted Knot
    Matsumoto Hafu is a basket maker active today. He is in his mid 50s and lives and works in southern Chiba Prefecture. He was one of the last two students of Iizuka Shokansai, and mastered the Iizuka technique of stripping and flattening very wide pieces of bamboo and shaping them. He makes several kinds of pieces but my favorites of his are of the flat 'noshidake' type like this. This piece was made in 2008. I love its compactness.
    • Matsumoto Hafu Exhibition Piece 2006
    This piece was made by Hafu in 2006 using extremely wide pieces of noshi flattened bamboo. The pieces are flattened so that he makes a cross at the bottom which is flat, and as the pieces come up, the edges are curved into a circle alignment to form a base for the rim, which sits atop mini bundle-weave 'comb forms'. In late 2009, Hafu was named the 2009 Cotsen Prize Winner. The Cotsen Prize (the 2009 prize being the 10th or so) is given each year to the basketmaker deemed to be most worthy. Llyod Cotsen, former head of Neutrogena Corporation, was one of the foremost basket collectors of the last 2-3 decades, eventually giving the collection to the Asian Art Museum a few years ago.
    • Uematsu Chikuyu Hanging Basket
    This basket is like a jewel. It was made by Uematsu Chikuyu who has been making baskets for about 30 years as of now. He is still 'active' but he makes about 2 baskets a year, and is considered by the unfortunately relatively few people who have seen his works, to be a perfectionist. This piece is about 8 inches tall and took him 4-5 months to make. It is made of lacquered 'tiger bamboo' and the finest rattan weaving I have ever seen.
    • Tanioka Shigeo Square Basket
    This basket made of bleached bamboo is among my favorites. It was made in the early 2000s by Tanioka Shigeo of Kyoto, who studied under Tanabe Chikuunsai II. Originally an industrial designer, he saw a basket exhibition a few decades ago and was so struck he approached Chikuunsai II to ask him to allow to study under him. He quit his job to become a basketmaker and now makes his living solely as a bamboo artist (as does his wife, Tanioka Aiko). This piece is such a brilliant display of mastery of bamboo design that I hardly know where to start. Barely visible is the fact that it has a double 'hull', where the bottom frame curls over at the edge to become the top, whereupon the wide-cut pieces narrow towards the center, where they are folded down to form a wine-bottle-bottom shape inside, which is suspended by the tension of the form and material over the outer hull which forms a round bowl-shaped base underneath what you see here. The finish of the piece is so exquisite that it is almost impossible to figure out where the bamboo strips begin and where they end, and when you finally figure it out, you are even more impressed by the technique he used to finish it. I look at this piece to inspire myself to be creative in finding a solution to a heretofore intractable problem.

Comments 10

Owner
Photon46, I like that one too. If you see it in person, it would amaze you. Of the basketmakers noted above, only the last three basketmakers (Uematsu-san, Matsumoto-san, and Tanioka-san) are alive, and they are all three in their mid 50s I believe. All told there are probably 15-20 basketmakers who have developed a small global reputation because of some representation by a dealer(s) in the US. Some artists would not be open to dealing directly with foreigners at all. Some might be open to dealing with foreigners directly in some instances and not in others (because of contractual relationships with their dealer/s). It would depend on the approach taken to get the 'last mile' (i.e. which intermediary used), the nature of their contract with their foreign dealer, the location of the approach (if made when the basketmaker was abroad, or made when the person was in Japan), and also probably on the person's nature. Only one modern basketmaker I know speaks much English - the current Tanabe Shochiku (who also exhibits under the name Tanabe Takeo for his modern works), a very nice young man who is the heir incumbent to the Chikuunsai name, who doesn't speak much English but is certainly willing to try, and travels and exhibits internationally, doing shows and demonstrations.

All active basketmakers I know are artisans, some of whom have their eccentricities when viewed from the collector's viewpoint. None of them have made or will be making money like Julian Schnabel and Richard Prince. As almost none speak any English, getting the intermediary is key if bypassing the established routes. I am in a weird place as I am a gaijin in Japan, because I have not gone through their established routes for dealing with gaijin, and I know or am known to most of the basketmakers at this point anyway, and my collecting priorities are not centered around current artists only. The ratio of recent to old baskets noted in the pictures above (4:14) is actually higher than in my collection overall.

All this said... if there is anyone visiting Japan who wants closer access to the world of basketry, I can probably assist in connections to either meet a basketmaker or three, or see baskets. Email for contacts if desired.

In any case, older baskets are far less expensive than newer works in a price per quality measure, because...
1) old basket sales don't need to pay the artist for his time and effort any more,
2) they are still under-appreciated (in my opinion - they are in a state like 20th century American and European furniture was 20-30 years ago),
3) because of lack of widespread knowledge of the form, we have 100 years of history to select from whereas in modern basketry, we have whatever happens to come through the galleries at any given time or over any given period.

t_bone

T-bone, most impressive basket collection. All are things of beauty, but I really like the Shigeo square basket, mind blowing workmanship and design. Do basket makers of the quality you collect deal with collectors directly or do they work through dealers/galleries? I have a friend who spent time in Japan and bought many fine woodcut tools from artisans. He told me some funny tales about the eccentricities of artisians when dealing with a gaijin seeking to buy high quality barens and hanga bake.

photon46

Owner
Douglas,
Believe it or not, a basketmaker named Wada Waiichisai (probably the third in
the line, the first one of whom was Tanabe Chikuunsai's original teacher) made a
console stereo case covering - similar to the above tea chest. I know the guy
who owns it. Unfortunately, he thinks it is worth a large fortune and I only want
to pay a small fortune for it.

The whole thing represents an excellent play on words because the original
word for phonograph is 蓄音機 'chiku-on-ki'
which translates as 'saving sound machine' (recording machine). However, as you
might surmise from some of the names above, "chiku" also means
bamboo (竹) so if changed to 竹音機, it would be
'bamboo sound machine' which would be perfectly appropriate for Waiichisai's
work.

t_bone

Owner
Thanks all for your comments.

Bob, you are welcome to send me an email any time.

Douglas, my living room is full of these kinds of baskets, and yes, they do act as a kind of room treatment. Shelves full of them would work very well as diffusors. If you want, I can arrange some in matte black or glossy black. Please let me know how many you want :^)

t_bone

Seriously, the beauty and artistry are impressive! :)

douglas_schroeder

I'm thinking of getting some of these for room treatments. How do you use them? Do you hang them, stack them? Please explain in detail.

I'm thinking I will tear them apart and glue 'em to the walls as diffraction panels. Then I will rename my system "Welcome to the Jungle". Can't you just picture the large panel speakers peeking through a forest of baskets! Cool!

I'm also giving some thought to weaving a speaker cabinet. Tight weave, so it doesn't have cabinet resonances. "Ported" through the gaps, and visually stunning! I'll probably paint it black. Do your bamboo baskets look as good with flat black paint? I'm thinking of a hybrid two way, with three 15" woofers, one 5" mid, and 1" tweeter per channel. I like bass! But it might need Magnestands to be stable.

Bamboo! You can eat it or use it for flooring! Or Room treatment! or Speaker cabinets! ;)

douglas_schroeder

Thank you for a wonderful start to the day!
Three pieces have inspired contemplation through your interpretation/photography.

Square Basket A technical masterpiece loaded with the energy of an expanding/contracting universe.

Geometric Basket An intellectual exercise creating the illusion of weight in a traditional basket including the waist/foot, supported by a base with upward thrusting nodes adding to the illusion of strength needed for support.

Experimental Basket This is beauty. Raku ware tea vessel status. The most exquisite handle matching the openness of the body yet won't let one wander away and dosen't drawing attention to itself, an exquisitely balanced Piece. Heaven/earth, open/closed, delicate/strong................. this Piece has it all.
The other baskets have qualities, this basket "IS".

Hope I didn't butcher anything as I have no background with Basket Ware.

Thank you
Sam

samhar

Very interesting and beautiful! Hope to talk to you sometime soon about your other obsession! Bob

baranyi

I say! The best system (of baskets) I've seen this (or any other) year.

The Iizuka Hosai II Tea Chest is a total work of art. No need to test in an anechoic chamber.

cfcjb

Beautiful collection. You are very lucky and... dedicated

jim94025

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