92nd Kokufu Exhibition Catalogue - 2018

Kokufu 93:

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, any from 1990 onwards are very similar. Style changes only occur gradually, many of the earlier books have very elegant trees. 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.