This is the official catalogue of the 61st Kokufu Bonsai Exhibition, held in 1987. For anyone serious about bonsai, a Kokufu album is more than a book — it’s the permanent record of the most important bonsai show in the world.
The Kokufu-ten has been held in Tokyo since 1934, today at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in Ueno, organised by the Nippon Bonsai Association. Acceptance into the show is the highest honour a tree and its owner can earn in Japan, and every February the finest bonsai in the country are gathered, judged and photographed for this catalogue.
What makes a 1987 edition special is the perspective it gives. Looking at trees shown nearly forty years ago, you see how Japanese taste has shifted — the styling conventions, the pot pairings, the species in favour at the time. Many of the trees in an older Kokufu book are still alive today and further refined, so you’re seeing a chapter in the long life of trees that may now be even more famous.
The catalogue is a deluxe hardcover, printed in full colour, documenting the more than two hundred bonsai on display that year. The text is in Japanese, but a Kokufu album is read with the eyes — the photography is the point, and it rewards close, repeated study.
For a collector building a library, the older editions are the hardest to find and the most prized. They go out of print and are not reissued, so each passing year makes a 1987 volume scarcer. As a reference, a gift for a serious enthusiast, or the cornerstone of a growing Kokufu shelf, an early edition like this carries a weight newer printings can’t.
- Exhibition: 61th Kokufu Bonsai-ten
- Year: 1987
- Format: hardcover, full colour
- Contents: 200+ exhibited bonsai, text in Japanese
