Sakaguchi Sōunsai (1899 - 1967)

Sakaguchi Sōunsai apprenticed with the celebrated bamboo master, Tanabe Chikuunsai I (1877 - 1937), becoming one of his top students. In 1929, he was one of the first two bamboo artists to exhibit in the government-sponsored Imperial Art Academy Exhibition (Teiten). His submission was a ‘modern’ style of fruit tray inspired by the reflection of moon in water and named Suigetsu (Water Moon), now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. One of his students was the bamboo artist Minoura Chikuhō (1934 - 2010).