Bonsai, Beyond the Border: Yuji Yoshimura, a Bonsai Artist Across the Ocean Exhibition

Coming up soon the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum (Saitama, Japan) has organized an Autumn Special Exhibition Commemorating their 10^th Anniversary and Sister Partnership with the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum in Washington, DC.

Bonsai, Beyond the Border: Yuji Yoshimura, a Bonsai Artist Across the Ocean Exhibition commemorates and highlights the life of a Japanese bonsai artist who spread bonsai to the United States. The exhibition will feature historical photographs, documents and other items illuminating the lifetime work and passion of Yuji Yoshimura and his 37 year career in the United States and abroad. His life’s goal was to introduce the appreciation, artistry and practice of elegant classical bonsai art.

His father, Toshiji Yoshimura, Kofu-en Bonsai Garden in Tokyo, was a leader of the Japanese bonsai and suiseki communities who helped to establish the arts in the modern world. His first son, Yuji Yoshimura, a second generation bonsai artist studied with his father and graduated from the Tokyo Horticultural School in 1938. He continued his goal for expanding bonsai outside Japan, beginning by co-authoring The Japanese Art of Miniature Trees and Landscapespublished in 1957, which is considered to be the “Bonsai Bible” and first authoritative bonsai book in English. In June 2015 Yuji Yoshimura was the second person inducted into the Bonsai Hall of Fame at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum at the US National Arboretum, in Washington, DC. For more information see:

https://valavanisbonsaiblog.com/2015/06/21/national-bonsai-hall-of-fame/

The Bonsai, Beyond the Border Exhibition about Yuji Yoshimura will be held from October 12 to November 24, 2019 at the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum. A special free program “Memories of Japanese Father, Mr. Y” will be presented by Wm. N. Valavanis on Tuesday, November 19, 2019 at 2 pm. This will be my first program to be presented in Japan. I feel very honored to be able to share my thoughts about the artist who shaped my life and passion of classical bonsai art and encouraged me to share the art internationally.

I’m quite pleased that the Japanese bonsai community has now, 60 years later, recognized the contributions Yuji Yoshimura has made to expand the Japanese art of bonsai across the ocean.