The 1955 Exhibition By Akira Yoshizawa British Origami

The Exhibition of Paperfolding By Akira Yoshizawa in Amsterdam 1955 and its place in the origins of modern origami. INTRODUCTION I was asked for information about the exhibition of the paperfolding of Akira Yoshizawa which was held in Amsterdam in the autumn of 1955. I was also asked if modern origami spread in Europe because of the exhibition and if any photographs, press reports or impressions of visitors are available. I have written an account of the exhibition at the Stedelijks Museum in Amsterdam, so far as I am able with the information available. I have, in addition, thought it necessary to set the exhibition in its historical context in order to show just what part it played in the development of modern origami. I go on to give a short account of the exhibition of the works by Yoshizawa at the Cooper Union Museum in New York. I add an account of the ultimate fate of the models by Yoshizawa which were exhibited. AKIRA YOSHIZAWA I have been conscious of the revolutionary contribution of Akira Yoshizawa to paperfolding ever since I first read Robert Harbin’s book, “Paper Magic” in 1958. During that period I have watched the development of the modern movement in what we now call “Origami” and I have increasingly become convinced that the principal inspiration for that revolution was the paperfolding of Akira Yoshizawa. Akira Yoshizawa was born in 1911. Before his folding became influential in the 1950s paperfolding in Japan could be broadly divided between the simple traditional children’s folding which was largely uncut on the one hand and various advanced styles of paperfolding practised by adults on the other. These included such ways of folding as the multiple conjoined cranes of the Sembazuru Orikata of 1797, the Kayaragysa (otherwise known as the Kan no mado) which was completed about 1845 and much of the work of the elder Uchiyama, Michio Uchiyama (1878 – 1967). Much of this adult paperfolding employed extensive cutting.

Michio Uchiyama, for instance, continued to publish books on his cut styles of origami, known variously as “Kirikami” origami or “Koko Style” origami into the 1930s. His son, Kosho Uchiyama also produced “cut-and-fold” origami which he published in his book Origami Zukan, which appeared as late as 1958. In contrast to this was the work of Isao Honda, (1888 – 1975) who was a collector of origami rather than a creator. His books largely amounted to collections of models which included the traditional figures of children’s folding. He also included figures modified from those previously created by Yoshizawa. While Honda’s books, and especially “All About Origami” (1960) and the ”The World of Origami” are very useful collections of early folding, few of the figures are Honda’s own creations. (The original edition of “The World of Origami” of 1965 is more useful than the abbreviated paper backed edition of 1976.) The work of Akira Yoshizawa sharply contrasted with that of all these previous folders to the extent that it was revolutionary. He was largely self-taught from childhood and in the course of his investigations he discovered new geometrical techniques of folding and developed new bases. In particular he developed the “sideways turn” of the bird base. In itself the “sideways turn” was not invented by Yoshizawa. It is to be found in traditional Japanese folds such as the crow or “Karasu”. The sideways turn had also been used by Miguel Unamuno in the early years of the 20th century, but his work was not nearly so elegant as that of Yoshizawa and Unamuno’s discoveries did not become known outside Spain and Argentina. Yoshizawa developed imaginative uses for the sideways turn and refined it far beyond what had gone before. Yoshizawa also eschewed any cutting and he insisted on what he called “sosaku origami” or “creative folding”. He developed a new technique of wet folding or dampening the paper so that he could mould the final form and also he developed ways of folding three dimensional models. Moreover he had a genius for breathing life into the creatures he folded.

Apart from actual folding, he introduced a new way of drawing diagrams which used different dotted lines for mountain and valley folds and arrows to indicate the directions in which folds were to be made. In itself, Yoshizawa’s method of diagramming facilitated the exchange of models between folders and made a world origami “movement” possible. Yoshizawa was slow in gaining recognition. For many years he lived in poverty, determined to make his living by paperfolding. Then, in the late 1940s he began to win a little recognition at teachers’ conferences and displayed his work at the teachers’ meetings. His big break came in 1951, when his reputation reached Tadasu Iizawa, who was the editor of the Japanese picture magazine, “Asahi Graf”. Tadasu Iizawa sought out Yoshizawa and commissioned him to design and fold the figures of the so-called Japanese Zodiac. I have never seen this article, but I have read that three of the models were a rabbit, a snake and a dragon, so the figures were presumably the twelve animals which symbolised the successive years in China and Japan. Yoshizawa worked intensively to create and fold the models and his new creations appeared in the issue of Asahi Graf for January, 1952. He was immediately recognised by the Japanese public as a genius and from that moment his life was transformed. From that time Yoshizawa’s new style of folding led directly to the modern origami movement. Modern origami blossomed in many styles and approaches. Some of them were similar to Yoshizawa’s own style, but other kinds of folding branched in different directions, some of them geometrical. Not all of them met with Yoshizawa’s approval. Nevertheless all of these developments can be traced back to the innovations of Yoshizawa. PAPERFOLDING AFTER 1945 At the time of the Second World War, paperfolding was evolving only slowly. Because of the War communications round the world were non-existent. Cheap air travel had not yet been introduced. One development which later had a significant importance, was that many American servicemen became stationed in Japan and began to take an interest in Japanese culture, including origami. Nevertheless, after the war ended there were a few isolated signs of revival of an interest in paperfolding in widely different parts of the world.

In the United States in 1945 Gershon Legman began to study the history of paperfolding. In England in 1946, Alfred Bestall began to introduce paperfolding into the Rupert Annuals; and in 1948 Maying Soong’s book “The Art of Chinese Paperfolding” was published in New York Then, in 1953, coincidence seems to have taken charge. While it did not become apparent until seen in a historical context, in several places in the world events took place which presaged the start of a new interest in paperfolding. In 1953, in England, Robert Harbin suddenly rediscovered his childhood interest in paperfolding and began to pursue it with great enthusiasm. Around 1953, In New York, Lillian Oppenheimer also became keenly interested in paperfolding when at last, after seeking for it for some years, she discovered how to fold the Flapping Bird from Emily Rosenthal. (Curiously, my own interest in paperfolding similarly increased in 1953, when at last I discovered how to fold the Chinese Junk.) But most significantly, 1953 was the year in which, after writing repeatedly to Yoshizawa for many months, Gershon Legman at last received a reply. These strands were initially separate but it was their eventual coming together that brought about the revolution in paperfolding, not only in Europe, but in much of the world. Gershon Legman had been appointed as the “official bibliographer and book buyer” for the Kinsey Institute of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. This was an organisation that was carrying out extensive research into human sexual relations. Legman, himself lived in the New York area and much of his bibliographic research was carried on in the larger libraries of the eastern United States and he was able to combine this work with a search for books about paperfolding. Painstakingly he compiled a list of paperfolding books, not only in English, but also in other European languages and in Japanese. (Legman’s Bibliography of Paper-Folding, a slender booklet of only eight pages, was eventually printed privately in 1952.) Carefully noting the contents of the books, he was able to build up a hiterto unprecedented knowledge of paperfolding in both East and West.

For instance, in one book he found a tear-off slip of paper which gave him information about how to make contact with Dr. Vicente Solorzano in Argentina. He wrote to Dr. Solorzano and began to correspond with him and was able to obtain copies of his book, which were at that time some of the most advanced books on paperfolding and its history written anywhere in the world. For instance, they included Solorzano’s series of “Papirolas” and his “Tratado de Papiroflexia Superior” which had been published in 1944. Legman also wrote to a professor in Argentina, who put him in touch with Ligia Montoya. Legman also found information about books published in Japan and he wrote to a Japanese publisher to ask for information about a very modest paperfolding book. He was surprised to receive a reply which told him about Akira Yoshizawa and urged him to get in touch with him. Following this, Legman wrote many letters to Yoshizawa without receiving a reply. Some reports say that Legman wrote as many as two hundred or more letters without a reply. But the reason for this was that at the time Yoshizawa was just too poor to pay even the postage on a letter. Then at last, at the beginning of August, 1953, Legman received a letter from Yoshizawa. Moreover, in a separate packet, Yoshizawa sent Legman models of a peacock, a “camel on four legs” and a chicken. Soon after, he sent a goose. Almost at the same time as Gershon Legman first heard from Yoshizawa he went to France at the expense of Seymour Hacker to oversee presswork on books being published in Paris, including his own limerick collection. It was the era of the McCarthy witch hunts and because of the nature of his work for the Kinsey Institute, Legman had found that the United States Postal Service had begun interfering with his mail. The offer of a free ticket to Europe gave him the opportunity to escape from New York and he decided to move to live in France at least temporarily, giving the reason that he intended to attend a course in psychology in Paris. It has been suggested that he inherited a tumbledown farmhouse in the south of France, but this was not so. His wife Beverley soon joined him in France and they decided to visit Provence.