was a Japanese textile designer. In 1956, he was designated as a Living National Treasure by the Japanese government for his ''

katazome is a Japanese method of dyeing fabrics using a resist paste applied through a stencil, typically a rice flour mixture applied with a brush or a tool such as a palette knife. Unlike , stencils are used repeatedly to make a repeating pattern. P ...

stencil Stencilling produces an image or pattern on a surface by applying pigment to a surface through an intermediate object, with designed holes in the intermediate object. The holes allow the pigment to reach only some parts of the surface creatin ...

dyeing Dyeing is the application of dyes or pigments on textile materials such as fibers, yarns, and fabrics with the goal of achieving color with desired color fastness. Dyeing is normally done in a special solution containing dyes and particular ...

technique. A leading member of the ''

mingei The concept of , variously translated into English as " folk craft", "folk art" or "popular art", was developed from the mid-1920s in Japan by a philosopher and aesthete, Yanagi Sōetsu (1889–1961), together with a group of craftsmen, includin ...

'' movement founded by

Yanagi Sōetsu , also known as Yanagi Muneyoshi, was a Japanese art critic, philosopher, and founder of the '' mingei'' (folk craft) movement in Japan in the late 1920s and 1930s. Personal life Yanagi was born in 1889 to Yanagi Narayoshi, a hydrographer of the ...

, Serizawa visited

Okinawa most commonly refers to: * Okinawa Prefecture, Japan's southernmost prefecture * Okinawa Island, the largest island of Okinawa Prefecture * Okinawa Islands, an island group including Okinawa itself * Okinawa (city), the second largest city in th ...

several times and learned the

Ryūkyū The , also known as the or the , are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Taiwan: the Ryukyu Islands are divided into the Satsunan Islands ( Ōsumi, Tokara and Amami) and Okinawa Prefecture ( Daitō, Miyako, Y ...

'' bingata'' techniques of dyeing. Chōsuke Serizawa (

Archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

) was his son. His folk-art productions included

kimono The is a traditional Japanese garment and the national dress of Japan. The kimono is a wrapped-front garment with square sleeves and a rectangular body, and is worn Garment collars in hanfu#Youren (right lapel), left side wrapped over ri ...

, paper prints, wall scrolls,

folding screen A folding screen, also known as pingfeng (), is a type of free-standing furniture consisting of several frames or panels, which are often connected by hinges or by other means. They have practical and decorative uses, and can be made in a variet ...

s, curtains, fans, and calendars. He also produced illustrated books, including ''Don Quixote'', ''Vincent van Gogh'' and ''A Day at Mashiko''. In 1981, the Municipal Serizawa Keisuke Art Museum was opened in the city of Shizuoka. Another museum, the Serizawa Keisuke Art and Craft Museum was opened in 1989 in

Sendai is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Miyagi Prefecture and the largest city in the Tōhoku region. , the city had a population of 1,098,335 in 539,698 households, making it the List of cities in Japan, twelfth most populated city in Japan. ...

. Other museums that hold his work include the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

, the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

, the

Harvard Art Museums The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

, the

Seattle Art Museum The Seattle Art Museum (commonly known as SAM) is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, United States. The museum operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum in ...

, the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

, the

University of Michigan Museum of Art The University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) is one of the largest university art museums in the United States, located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with . Built as a war memorial in 1909 for the university's fallen alumni from the Civil War, Alu ...

, and the

Museum of New Zealand The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is New Zealand's national museum and is located in Wellington. Usually known as Te Papa ( Māori for ' the treasure box'), it opened in 1998 after the merging of the National Museum of New Zealand a ...

. "The distinguishing trait of Serizawa's ''katazome'' method is the use of the starch mixture to create, not a colored area as is current in direct-dyeing process, but a blank, undyed one that forms a part of the pattern and that can later be colored by hand in multi-color or monochrome as the designer sees fit."''Keisuke Serizawa, The Stencil Artist, Volume 1''. Tokyo, Tsukiji Shokan Publishing Company, Ltd., distributed by the Maruzen Co., Ltd, 1967.

References

External links

Tohoku Fukushi University Serizawa Keisuke Art and Craft Museum
in Japanese
Shizuoka City Serizawa Keisuke Art Museum
in Japanese
Video: "THE ART OF KEISUKE SERIZAWA — A National Treasure of Japan"
from the

Mingei International Museum Mingei International Museum is a non-profit public institution in Balboa Park in San Diego, California, that collects, conserves and exhibits folk art, craft, and design. The museum was founded in 1974, and its building opened in 1978. The word ' ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Serizawa, Keisuke Japanese designers 1895 births 1984 deaths People from Shizuoka (city) Living National Treasures of Japan Recipients of the Order of the Sacred Treasure, 4th class Mingei Artists from Shizuoka Prefecture 20th-century Japanese male artists 20th-century Japanese textile artists