88th Kokufu Exhibition Catalogue - 2014

Kokufu 88:

Kokufu Books:

The Kokufu Exhibition in Tokyo is the oldest and most prestigious bonsai exhibition in the world, bar none. Catalogues show all trees exhibited and lists the artist or owner of the tree as well. Quality is extremely high with a cardboard sleeve, flysheet and hardback binding, photography and print quality are exceptional. Many pages have species names and sizes in English, although Google Translate can be very helpful for more details.

A high quality printed image you can study is so much more instructive than a screenshot.

Notes on collecting: If you're only buying one book, aim for a recent one, say the last ten years or so. Styles have changed and trees have grown. Many famous trees re-appear through the history of Kokufu, so you can see their change and improvement over time.

Each book is instructive and has wonderful trees, no one book is better than any other. Each book has a number of the classic tree species, and a few unusual species appear in each volume as well.

It can be instructive to have one book from the last 3 or 4 decades - you can see changes over time. Alternatively, you might prefer to collect only recent years, maybe one in three shows to capture the zeitgeist and see the largest number of modern trees.