Ryūjo Hori
{{Short description|Japanese dollmaker}}
{{Nihongo|Ryūjo Hori|堀柳女|Hori Ryūjo|1897–1984}} (born Matsue Yamada) was a Japanese dollmaker of traditional dolls.
Biography
Hori started her career as a painter, but switched to doll making after an epiphany with a piece of gum; seeing the half-chewed gum she was fiddling looked something like a human face caused her to become interested in three-dimensional representations of the human form. She began to construct dolls from flour and newspaper paste, using chopsticks as a structural base.{{cite book|title=New Japan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_wxHAQAAIAAJ|accessdate=25 April 2013|year=1967|publisher=Mainichi Publishing Company|page=125}}{{cite book|author1=Tsune Sugimura|author2=Masataka Ogawa|title=The Enduring Crafts of Japan: 33 Living National Treasures|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WDFQAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=25 April 2013|year=1968|publisher=Walker/Weatherhill|page=210}} In 1930 she joined Yumeji Takehisa's Dontakusha group of artists and subsequently focussed her entire output on doll-making; that same year she had her first exhibition at the Hina Matsuri Festival.{{cite book|author1=金子賢治|author2=今井陽子|title=今日の人形芸術: 想念の造形|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bBbrAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=25 April 2013|year=2003|publisher=TBS|page=14}}{{cite book|author=講談社|title=Japan: An Illustrated Encyclopedia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d2-6AAAAIAAJ|accessdate=25 April 2013|year=1993|publisher=Kodansha|isbn=978-4-06-206489-7|page=562}}{{cite news|title=Dolls, Tea Service Delight First Lady|url=http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=MH&s_site=miami&p_multi=MH&p_theme=realcities&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EB35E0CA57F4329&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D|accessdate=25 April 2013|newspaper=Miami Herald|date=10 November 1983}} Early on in her career, she studied under the famous doll-makers Goyo Hirata and Juzo Kagoshima, both Living National Treasure of Japan.
Her creation of a new style of kimekomi-ningyō doll resulted in her own appointment as a Living National Treasure of Japan in 1955; she was both the first woman to be awarded this accolade and the first artist to be largely self-taught.{{cite book|author=Louis Frédéric|title=Japan enciklopedia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p2QnPijAEmEC&pg=PA353|accessdate=25 April 2013|year=2002|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-01753-5|page=353}} She commonly sculpted dolls in the likeness of aristocratic women of the Heian period, in paulownia wood or (later in her career) shiso (terracotta overlaid with paper).{{cite book|author=Tokubē Yamada|title=Japanese Dolls|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R53WAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=25 April 2013|year=1955|publisher=Japan Travel Bureau|page=156}} Her dolls can take up to ten years to complete.{{cite book|author1=Jan Fontein|author-link1=Jan Fontein|title=Living national treasures of Japan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zx7rAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=25 April 2013|year=1982|publisher=Committee of the Exhibition of Living National Treasures of Japan}} In 1983 she was presented to Nancy Reagan during a presidential visit to Japan, who claimed to "admire [Hori's] patience as much as [her] art". (Hori was forbidden from bringing her tools - primarily knives - to the meeting.){{cite book|author1=Briton Hadden|author2=Henry Robinson Luce|title=Time|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4VruAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=25 April 2013|date=November 1983|publisher=Time Inc.|page=127}}
References
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Category:Living National Treasures of Japan