This is the official catalogue of the 77th Kokufu Bonsai Exhibition, held in 2003 — and like every Kokufu album, it’s a survey of the full range of Japanese bonsai.
The Kokufu-ten, staged in Tokyo since 1934 under the Nippon Bonsai Association, isn’t devoted to a single style. Across its two hundred-plus trees you’ll find towering five-needle and black pines, junipers with dramatic deadwood, and deciduous trees in bare winter silhouette — maples, beeches, hornbeams — alongside flowering and fruiting species and refined shohin displays. The February timing means the deciduous trees are leafless, so their branch structure is fully on show.
That breadth is exactly what makes the catalogue useful. Whatever you grow, you’ll find the best examples of it here, photographed at the highest level. It’s a chance to compare how the masters handle a pine against a maple, a large tree against a tiny one, and to see the conventions that define each.
The 2003 edition is a deluxe hardcover printed in full colour, with text in Japanese. The value is in the images, which are made for close study.
For a grower assembling a reference library, each year adds another cross-section of the art at its peak. The 77th edition is one more, and a strong one — a single volume that puts the whole spectrum of fine bonsai in front of you.
- Exhibition: 77th Kokufu Bonsai-ten
- Year: 2003
- Format: hardcover, full colour
- Contents: 200+ exhibited bonsai, text in Japanese
