UPCOMING TOUR
Bamboo Art Tour of Japan
March 28 – April 7, 2027
As we finalize the details of our Spring 2027 Bamboo Art Tour of Japan, we’re excited to share that we still have a few spots available and would like to invite you to join us!
Designed especially for collectors and enthusiasts of Japanese bamboo art, this journey takes us from Tokyo through Tomonoura, Fukuyama, Kurashiki, Beppu, Osaka, and Kyoto, with unique access to artists and collections along the way. At the heart of the tour are visits with some of Japan’s leading bamboo artists, offering a rare glimpse into their homes and studios and the opportunity to learn firsthand about their creative practices and the traditions behind their work. This spring, we’ll be meeting with Kawano Shoko, Shono Tokuzo, Tanabe Chikuunsai IV, Monden Yuichi, Living National Treasure Kibe Seiho, and many more.
Together, these experiences offer a unique perspective on Japanese bamboo art and a side of Japan that few visitors have the opportunity to experience. The itinerary also includes a rare private viewing of treasures from the Oita Prefectural Art Museum, as well as a deeper immersion in Japanese culture through historic towns, temples, traditional crafts, hot springs, and exceptional dining.
Whether you are a longtime collector of Japanese bamboo art or a new admirer of the art form, we’d love to welcome you on this special tour.
Please let us know if you are considering joining us. We would be happy to share trip details and additional information about the itinerary and accommodations. Registration ends Friday, October 23, 2026.
To learn more, click here.
PAST AUTUMN ASIA WEEK NEW YORK EXHIBITION
Sencha to Sculpture: The Evolution of Japanese Bamboo Art to the 1960s
August 28 – October 10, 2026
Opening Reception: Friday, August 28, 5-7pm
Speaker Series:
Bamboo Objects in Japanese Tea Ceremony (Chanoyu) | Presented by: Sara Klingenstein, PhD on Saturday, Aug 29 at 2pm
Bamboo Objects in Japanese Tea Ceremony (Senchado)| Presented by: Patricia Graham, PhD on Saturday, Sept 5 at 2pm
We are pleased to pleased to present Sencha to Sculpture: The Evolution of Japanese Bamboo Art to the 1960s, an exhibition following the transformation of Japanese bamboo art from tea ceremony utensils to sculptural form. This first installment of a planned three-part series brings together nearly 50 bamboo works and introduces pieces from the Minminsai lineage, including a signed basket by Kobayashi Minminsai I (d. 1791). This basket predates the work of Hayakawa Shokosai I (1815-1897), who has long been credited as the first Japanese bamboo artist to sign his work, identifying Minminsai I, rather than Hayakawa, as the earliest confirmed signer in the history of the medium.
The origins of Japanese bamboo art are inseparable from the culture of tea ceremony. Bamboo flower baskets became more than functional vessels; they emerged as expressions of aesthetic philosophy, intellectual refinement, and spiritual contemplation. Imported Chinese baskets in particular were prized by tea practitioners. In the mid-Edo period, Japanese artists began to ask what a distinctly Japanese basket might look like. The exhibition opens with this question, following the earliest documented bamboo artist, Kobayashi Minminsai I, whose signed baskets marked a turning point: for the first time, a basket maker’s name, not anonymity, accompanied the piece. His work, together with that of successive generations of the Minminsai lineage, elucidates the close relationship between bamboo artistry and the flourishing tea culture.
The story continues through Osaka, the mercantile heart of Edo-period Japan and the epicenter of the sencha tea movement, where in the mid-1800s, in opposition to the prevailing taste for heavily lacquered and ornate Chinese baskets, the samurai-turned-artist Hayakawa Shokosai I developed a new unmistakably Japanese style of bamboo art. He pioneered new techniques of preparing and dyeing bamboo, invented new forms, and incorporated Japanese artistic concepts, such as rustic simplicity, understated grace, and sensitivity to the natural world. His work would go on to win awards at international expositions and enter foreign collections, early evidence of the medium’s global reach.
The exhibition demonstrates how successive generations pushed the medium further: the radical “ice-cracking” weave of Hayakawa Shokosai III (1864–1922) upended the very logic of woven form; Tanabe Chikuunsai I (1877-1937) and Maeda Chikubosai I (1872-1950) forged a distinctly Japanese literati aesthetic in Osaka; and Iizuka Rokansai (1890-1958) established Tokyo as a rival art center and drove the modernization of the art form. By the 1950s, artists such as Shono Shounsai (1904-1974) had begun to break the concept of the basket open entirely, abandoning functionality in pursuit of pure sculptural expression. This exhibition showcases the shift through basket-form work by Shounsai, alongside a transitional sculptural piece from the 1950s-60s by Ishikawa Shoun (1895-1973).
Sencha to Sculpture: The Evolution of Japanese Bamboo Art to the 1960s opens on Friday, August 28 with an opening reception from 5-7pm. A speaker series is planned for the two Saturdays following the opening, further diving in to the use of bamboo objects in tea ceremony.
To learn more, click here.
About the Gallery
TAI Gallery was created by Robert T. Coffland, a leading expert in Japanese bamboo arts in the West, who began sourcing works from contemporary masters in Japan. The gallery moved from the founder’s home to a gallery space on Canyon Road, then to its current location in the Santa Fe Railyard in 2006.
Margo Thoma purchased the gallery in 2014 and merged it with her contemporary American art gallery, Eight Modern. Rebranded as TAI Modern, Thoma and renowned bamboo expert, Koichiro Okada, continue Coffland’s mission of building museum-quality collections.
Thoma supports and promotes bamboo art in the West by serving as an advisor to Western collectors and institutions, facilitating public demonstrations, and curating bamboo art exhibitions. She is a tireless collaborator and ally with and for senior artists across Japan, and sponsors aspiring bamboo artists to participate in national competitions. She has written essays for exhibition catalogs both in the U.S. and Japan and is a frequent public speaker on bamboo art.
Works by TAI Modern artists have been placed in some of the country’s most prestigious institutions, including the Art Institute of Chicago; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Mint Museum of North Carolina; Minneapolis Institute of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Denver Art Museum; Museum of Art and Design; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco.