SERIZAWA KEISUKE (1895-1984)

The famed textile artist of Mingei (Japanese Folk Crafts) movement, Serizawa Keisuke was designated as a Living National Treasure in 1956.
He was recognized as a masterful textile designer using a stencil-dyeing techniques also known as bingata which originated in Okiniwa Prefecture. Characterized by bright yet warm colors of vegetable dyes and bold designs, his powerful work is widely appreciated for being ground breaking as an art form using traditional textile techniques.
The poem of Iroha with Japanese kana characters was a favored design and he often used vibrantly colored Iroha uta characters on his works.