ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

KIYO YOSHIZAWA

Kiyo Yoshizawa married the Master in 1956 and became his manager. After her husband’s death in 2004, she worked on preserving and disseminating his legacy throughout the world, directing and supporting the International Origami Center with her constant activity, and passing down the artist’s original techniques, including wetfolding, one of his inventions. In recent years, she has organized various exhibitions abroad in order to help the public gain a better understanding of Yoshizawa’s works.

HIROKO ICHIYAMA

After graduating from Yuhigaoka High School in 1956 and Roanoke College (VA, USA) in 1960, Hiroko Ichiyama studied at the University of Oslo in Norway. In 1961, she taught at the American School in Japan, and from there went on to become the editor responsible for Reader’s Digest (Far east edition) and afterwards the magazine’s Chief Assistant editor in Japan. She began collaborating with the Master in 1966, translating various of his writings, including Origami Museum: Animals, vol. 1, an english edition with models inspired by natural history.

ROBERT J. LANG

Born in 1961, Robert J. Lang has been deeply involved in origami since the age of six when he discovered several instructions for traditional designs in a library book. This early beginning ignited a lifelong passion for the art. He is now considered one of the world’s leading origami artists, with hundreds of original creations to his credit as well as 14 books authored, co-authored, or edited on the art, numerous articles and instructions published in origami periodicals. He regularly lectures and teaches origami at conventions and workshops around the world. He has a phd in Applied physics from Caltech, and has used his mathematical and engineering training to advance origami, both artistically and in its applications to science and technology. In his origami career, he has drawn upon many sources and influences, not least of which is the work of Yoshizawa-sensei. Yoshizawa’s techniques, both technical and artistic, played a major role in Lang’s own origami evolution, and he is honored to be able to contribute to this work of the Master.

KAZUO HAMADA

Born in 1958 in the prefecture of Chiba, Kazuo Hamada graduated from the Tokyo School of photography and began freelancing in 1984. In 1990, he founded his own photography studio, and today he collaborates with Tokyo’s prestigious pacific press photo Agency. He won the 21st Japan’s Advertising photographers’ Association Award (ApA) and other important prizes. His works have been exhibited in many photography exhibitions in Japan and abroad.

ORNELLA CIVARDI

Upon graduating in 1987 with a degree in Oriental Languages and Literature and a thesis on Japanese literature from the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Ornella Civardi obtained a one-year fellowship at the University Keio in Tokyo. She has translated and edited the writings of celebrated Japanese writers and poets, such as Yukio Mishima, Yasunari Kawabata, Junzaburo Nishiwaki, Yoko Ogawa, Ogai Mori and Ikkyu Sojun for various publishing houses. She has also written and edited works on Zen and the culture and history of Japanese art, including Iseki Masaaki’s book on Japanese painting, Pittura giapponese dal 1800 al 2000 (Skira, 2004). She won the 2005 Alcantara prize for her translation of Kawabata’s Palm-of-the-Hand Stories.

All models were folded by the Master except those on pages 150–1, which were executed with the collaboration of Kiyo Yoshizawa and Tamiko Kikugawa.