What Happened On This Date in "Recent" Bonsai History?
MARCH
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| 2 | 1985 -- The $25 million Kanuma Nature and Bonsai Park, designed by Japanese publisher and Satsuki azalea enthusiast Kenko Rokkaku, opened. Visitors there can enjoy almost 250 masterpiece bonsai of a variety of species on display in five traditional Japanese style exhibition houses located on part of approximately 30 acres of scenic forest and wildflowers surrounded by mountains. One hundred minutes by train from Tokyo, the complex is operated by Rokkaku's Satsuki Kenyusha publishing company, includes four miles of wooden paths, and has parking spaces for 400 cars and thirty buses. ("Something New Under the Sun" by Russell Coker, Bonsai, BCI, May/June 1986, pg. 25, datelined Kanuma City, Japan, gives the grand opening date as March 2nd; "Biography of Mr. Kenko Rokkaku" by Bill Spencer, same issue, pg. 17, gives opening of Feb. 26. Other sources, including International Bonsai, 1985/No. 2, pg. 27, give March 2.) SEE ALSO: Feb 23 |
| 3 | 1951 -- Beginning today and running through the 11th, the California International Flower Show was held at Hollywood Park in Inglewood. At this show, the fledging Southern California Bonsai Club won another first prize for its entry. This group had been officially formed the previous November by John Naka and four friends, Fumiko ("Frank") B. Nagata, Morihei Furuya, Mrs. Ai Okumura, and Joseph Yamashiro, to bring bonsai within the reach of everyone. Mssrs. Nagata, Furuya and Naka, along with their teacher Sam (Tameichi) Doi, one of the early knowledgeable bonsai men in Southern California, had arrived at the 1950 Gabriel Valley Fall Flower and Garden Show at the Fannie E. Morrison Horticulture Center in Pasadena to exhibit their trees. Informed that individuals could not display unless they were sponsored by a club, the quick thinking Frank Nagata spoke up and said they were a club. Without hesitation or benefit of conference he then gave the group's name. These artists were now allowed to enter their trees, which did win a trophy and a blue ribbon at the Show the next day. [And the following month (April 1951) the club would win a special award in the Southern California Spring Flower and Garden Show, again in Pasadena. The group would go on to become one of the most influential in the state and be the training ground of many national and international teachers.] (Bonsai Techniques (BT) by JYN, pg. 257; "My Husband, the Bonsai Man" by Alice Naka, Bonsai, BCI, Vol. XXV, No. 3, May/June 1986, pg. 22; even monkeys fall out of trees by Nina Shire Ragle (Laguna Beach, CA: Nippon Art Forms; 1987), pp. 7-8; "John Naka at the Atlanta Bonsai Congress '73," by Ann Getman, Bonsai, BCI, Vol. XIII, No. 6, July/August 1974, pg. 28; Bonsai in California, No. 1 (1967), pg. 1; "History of Bonsai West" by Dorothy S. Young, International Bonsai Digest presents Bonsai Gems, Fall 1974, pp. 93-94, also pg. 82; International Bonsai, IBA, 1986/No. 2, pg. 12; "History of California Bonsai Society" by Khan Komai, Bonsai in California, Vol. 3, 1969, pg. 38.) SEE ALSO: Apr 20 |
| 4 | 2001 -- The first 30 minute episode of the 13-part "Lindsay Farr's The Way of Bonsai" aired in Australia on Foxtel Lifestyle TV. This was the first English language series entirely about bonsai. A companion web site was also established. [Viewers would tell the presenter and co-producer Farr that they "have found a greater strength of resolve towards their individual expression through Bonsai. An insight into the origins and philosophy seems to better enable this." A long-time bonsai nurseryman, Farr has had experience producing varied topic cable programs for both Western and Asian audiences. NOTE: A second 13-part series which will include quite a bit of footage in China currently is in pre-production and negotiations are underway for international release of series one.] (Linsay Farr in personal e-mails to RJB on October 15, 2000 through January 26, 2002 ) SEE ALSO: May 20 |
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| 13 | 2001 -- Frederic L. Ballard, the first president of the National Bonsai Foundation, died. A lawyer from Philadelphia, he had been introduced to the art before 1960 by his wife, Ernesta, who had recently participated in an all-day seminar and workshop given by Yuji Yoshimura. Together they built a collection which included tropical plants suitable for indoor bonsai. He and his wife were founding members of the American Bonsai Society in 1967, which Ernesta and Jerry Stowell had set in motion the previous year. A Ginkgo biloba bonsai owned by the couple had its photograph on the cover of the third issue of the ABS Journal. A noted bonsai teacher and writer whose trees are regularly exhibited in the shows of the Pennsylvania Bonsai Society and Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, Frederic demonstrated different techniques for rock plantings at the 1969 ABS Symposium in Philadelphia. With Ernesta he was on that convention's Arrangement Committee and they conducted a tour of their home and collection for the participants. Frederic later became president of the National Bonsai Foundation in 1987 and helped to elevate its fundraising and programmatic sights. He served in that office until early 1996, and became President Emeritus afterwards. (E-mail from Betty Yeapanis to RJB April 18, 2001; "American Bonsai Society Second Annual Symposium," ABS Journal, Vol. 3, No. 1, Spring 1969, p. 11; "ABS News: Meet the Directors," ABS Journal, Vol. 4, No. 3, Fall 1970, p. 16, which gives 1955 as the date for Yoshimura's seminar. The sensei did arrive at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on a fellowship grant in 1959, but we have not found reference to an earlier visit elsewhere in our researches. ) |
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| 15 | 1970 -- Beginning today and running through Sept. 13, a large-scale bonsai and suiseki show was held in conjunction with the Osaka World Exposition in Senri. Sponsored by the Nippon Bonsai Association, the Japan Suiseki Society, and the Japan Satsuki Club, the display was impressively staged on outdoor benches in one portion of the sixty-four acre Japanese garden area. New replacements would be brought in so that during the run approximately two thousand of the most famous and honored trees in the land would be displayed, nearly every one in a 200 to 300-year old Chinese pot. The pots were collectors' items and many were as well known and named as the trees they supported. Morihiko Tomita was the manager in residence of the exhibit, having sold half of his 50-year collection of 600 small bonsai to come to the Expo for six months. (Mr. Tomita was also the discoverer of the mountain where "Kikukaseki" or chrysanthemum stones are found.) ("Bonsai's Top Show" by Dorothy S. Young, Bonsai Journal, ABS, Spring 1970, pp. 3-4) |
| 16 | 1968 -- Third generation penjing master Yee-Sun Wu entered the First Urban Council Flower Show in Hong Kong and won the Kadoorie Championship Cup for Bonsai. [Over the next six years he would enter or put on a few other exhibitions of his masterpieces to large crowds, publish two editions of his book Man Lung Garden Artistic Pot Plants, deliver public lectures, and contribute articles on dwarf tree culture to various magazines and newspapers. This would all stir up the interest of the Chinese people to revive this traditional art which had become synonymous with Japan.] (Man Lung Artistic Pot Plants by Yee-Sun Wu, pp. 24, 27-28) SEE ALSO: Mar 27, May 2, Jul 7, Dec 14 |
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| 20 | 1975 -- Fifty trees that would become the permanent National Arboretum Bonsai Collection were accepted by Arboretum Director Dr. John Creech in ceremonies in Tokyo, Japan. Presented by the Nippon Bonsai Association in honor of the upcoming U.S. Bicentennial, half of the miniature trees were donations from private sources, including some from members of the Royal Japanese family. The remaining trees were purchased with funds from the Japan Foundation, a semi-official agency which also covered expenses for expert artists to come to the U.S. to instruct American personnel in proper care of these irreplaceable treasures. (Bonsai, BCI, June 1975, pg. 139) SEE ALSO: May 2, Jun 9, Jul 9, Jul 21, Aug 26, Sep 30, Oct 1, Oct 15 |
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| 27 | 1985 -- A collection of thirty prized penjing donated by third-generation
artist Yee-Sun Wu of Hong Kong to the Montreal Botanic Garden was unveiled.
[Within four months almost a quarter million people would visit the collection
which was receiving excellent care. So much major local and national
radio, television, and print coverage was given to the trees that Mr. Wu
would donate another seventeen of his outstanding treasures to the City
of Montreal before the year ended.] (International
Bonsai, 1985/No. 4, pg. 20) SEE ALSO: Mar 16, May
2, July 7, Dec 14
1999 -- A set of four postage stamps commemorating the Bonsai Exhibition there was issued by the Republic of San Marino. SEE ALSO: Jan 29, Feb 3, Mar 31, Apr 3, Apr 6, Apr 18, Jul 20, Aug 20, Sep 22, Oct 4, Dec 9. |
| 28 | 1996 -- Beginning today and running through Aug. 18, the Asia Society Galleries in New York presented "Worlds within Worlds: The Richard Rosenblum Collection of Chinese Scholars' Rocks." More than 70 examples of this art assembled by an American sculptor over the past 25 years provided a strangely provocative exhibition, full of beautiful and sometimes haunting objects that make us question where we are standing when we look at nature and see art. Although most of the rocks were but a few inches high and sitting on carved wooden bases, the outstanding example was nearly six feet tall and just nine inches wide. Honorable Old Man (16th - 17th century) was craggy and rough as a tree branch, the stripped down image of a Chinese sage. Its inscription was effaced and its pedestal removed in the 1960s to disguise it as a mere rock, and thus save it from the iconoclasts of the Cultural Revolution. ("chinese scholars' rocks, simultaneously original and simulacrum" by John Mendelsohn, http://www.artnet.com/magazine/features/mendelsohn/mendelsohn8-26-96.asp) |
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| 31 | 1940 -- Masahiko Kimura was born in Omiya, Japan. [Beginning
in his teens, he would apprentice under a bonsai master for eleven years
before working in the horticulture field on his own. He would then
go on to become known as the Magical Technician of Kindai Shuppan: his
breathtaking sculpting and styling of trees on behalf of that bonsai magazine
publisher done using hand and power tools of his own design. The
sometimes controversial author and videotape producer first demonstrated
and conducted a workshop outside of Japan at the 1987 Golden State Federation
Bonsai Convention in Anaheim.] ("The World of Masahiko
Kimura" by Kay Urbanski, Journal, ABS, Winter 1991, pp. 12-14)
1981 -- "Miniature landscapes," a set of six postage stamps, was issued by the Peoples' Republic of China (Mainland China). SEE ALSO: Jan 29, Feb 3, Mar 27, Apr 3, Apr 6, Apr 18, Jul 20, Aug 20, Sep 22, Oct 4, Dec 9. |
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