TAI Modern announces “Suemura Shobun” as the final show of our 2025 summer season. This exhibition brings together the finest collection of pieces from the artist’s prolific career.
Suemura Shobun was born in 1917 as Suemura Bunzo in Osaka. After graduating from Imamiya Junior High School, he was apprenticed for five years to Yamamoto Shoen (also known as Chikuryusai I), a respected bamboo artist well known for his karamono-style flower baskets. Suemura became independent in 1941, taking the artist’s name “Shobun”: “Sho” meaning flute, as an homage to Yamamoto Shoen, and “Bun” from his given name. However, he had been independent for less than a year when he was drafted and assigned to work in a factory for the war effort. Suemura would not return to working with bamboo until almost a decade later.
In 1951, Suemura had his work accepted into Nitten, the annual exhibition mounted by Japan’s most prestigious fine arts organization, for the first time and would go on to be shown thirty-six more times. He won sev
