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Ueno Masao (Japanese, born in 1949)
Japanese
Heisei era
2004
Medium/Technique
Madake bamboo, rattan, gold powder, and lacquer
Dimensions
Overall: 65 x 18 cm (25 9/16 x 7 1/16 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase with funds by exchange from the William Sturgis Bigelow Collection, Bequests of Mrs. Lydia Semple Hays, John Pickering Lyman Collection, Gift of Miss Theodora Lyman, Gift of Marion Breckenridge Patterson, Gift of Denman Waldo Ross, Gift of Patti and Dean Freed, Gift of Mrs. Frank Gair Macomber, Gift of Mrs. Henrietta Page, Anonymous gifts, Gift of Mrs. Benjamin Moore, Denman Waldo Ross Collection, Gift of the Estate of A. D. Weld French, Julia Bradford Huntington James Fund, Gift of Miss Lucy T. Aldrich, in memory of Miss Minnie A. MacFadden, Gift of Jan Fontein, Gift of Kita Kazuaki, Gift of Mrs. Albertine W.F. Valentine, Gift of Mrs. Henry P. Kidder, Gift in the name of Robert Hatton Monks, Bequest of Mrs. John H. Thorndike, Gift of Mrs. Dorothy Godfrey Wayman, Asiatic Curator's Fund, Gift of Hajime G. Kozuru, Gift of Miss E. Elizabeth Sears, in memory of her sister, Mary Crease Sears, Gift of Miss Patricia C. Holsaert in memory of Edith Perry Ballantine, and Bequest of Mabel A. Horne
Accession Number2006.1344
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsAsia, Contemporary Art
ClassificationsBasketry
This basket is by Ueno Masao, a relative newcomer to the Japanese basketry scene who was formerly an architect. Ueno combines the latest digital technology-he designs his pieces on an Apple computer-with the most basic and time-consuming traditional techniques, cutting the bamboo poles himself, heating them to extract oils, scraping them and splitting them four times lengthways and then another time crosswise, drawing them through fixed knives and bending them over a spirit lamp. Ueno is fascinated by the Japanese use of transparency, as in sudare bamboo blinds, to let "the environment affect the art and the art the environment." He is also a skilled dyer and lacquerer of bamboo.
ProvenancePurchased from the artist by Saito Masamitsu; 2006, offered for purchase to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
CopyrightReproduced with permission.