Hardcover/eBook | Sosaku Kokeshi: Celebrating the Major Artists of the Creative Movement

The quality of our mission has moved us into a leading position in education regarding Japanese Sosaku Kokeshi, which has lasted for over 45 years. 

We also express our deep gratitude to Soulportals.com for their generous and magnificent work and for supporting mingeiarts in promoting kokeshi and we recommend visiting their website to anyone who is interested in learning.

This extensive 206-page hardbound publication and eBook is “the only comprehensive book on the subject of Sosaku Kokeshi”. Presented are over 416 full-color images, exploring leading Japanese artists and woodworkers, (Kiji-shi), and the variety, diversity, and historical uniqueness of the very best examples forming the foundation of the Sosaku movement. The book includes data on Forty-six, (46), Sosaku artists with 36,000 words identifying signatures, descriptive qualities, and standard characteristics of dolls as they visually represent a culturally rich and creative society (see a sampling of writings and images contained in this book). The artist, the craft, and the real and imagined applying artistic skills of the craft of Sosaku Kokeshi's creation to act as an inspiration to the modern art practice of lathe-turned dolls.

The mid-50s explodes into a country-wide guild of talented wooden doll makers focused on the art of Sosaku, (Creative), and modern Kokeshi doll making began in the early 1940s, grew, and flourished in the 1950s through the 60s, and well into the 70s. This 30+ year period produced the greatest, most enduring, and most popular artists of the genre, with many of them gaining continual international recognition.

This beautiful publication and its contents cannot be considered the ‘be-all, end-all’ voice on the subject of Sosaku Kokeshi and their artists. In our research of artisans of the genre, we found little to no biographical data because before required little was published on the artist/carvers, therefore we show you, the reader/collector, a partially-painted canvas. NOTE: As for the eBook, it was specifically digitized for our international and EU customers. 

© All rights reserved under copyright. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means whatsoever without permission from the ebook’s authors, Michael Evans and Robert Wolf, principals of Mingeiarts. The authors retain sole copyright of their contributions to this book and retain the copyright to all layout designs, graphic elements, and photography. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, ISBN: 9781667836577.