Bamboo fruit basket

Iizuka Rokansai elevated bamboo craft to an acknowledged art as an artist and advocate. He served as advisor and judge in the Nitten exhibition in the late forties, and was later president of Japan Bamboo Craft Artists' Association and director of the Japan Crafts Association. He was the leader of Tokyo bamboo masters in the twenties and participated in the Teiten exhibition of 1931. In the 1932 Teiten he won the award for special merit, the first for a bamboo artist. He was also the first in his field to be selected as a judge in the succeeding Shin-Bunten exhibition.

Rokansai was the son of the bamboo master Iizuka Hosai I and the nephew of Hosai II (1872-1932), a prize-winner in the Paris Exposition of 1925. Typical of bamboo craftsmen, Rokansai was expert in Chinese styles but developed his own signature, ranging from intricate weaving to bold strips of bent bamboo. An exhibition of 110 works of bamboo, drawings and calligraphy honoring the thirtieth anniversary of his death was held at the Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts in February, 1989.