This is the story of how two of the most important players of the “new” origami movement in the 20th century — Akira Yoshizawa and his proponent, Gershon Legman — met for the first time. The essay also seeks to debunk certain myths and to discredit earlier assertions of a barrage of letters written by Legman to Yoshizawa in an attempt to reach out to him.
The Yoshizawa who emerges from the present analysis of these letters is young, powerful and proactive, in complete contrast to the image of an artist waiting to be discovered in an obscure Tokyo suburb. This new perspective, revealing a man who sets out in pursuit of his destiny without waiting to be summoned, and who capitalizes on his opportunities, is consistent with the elements that defined Yoshizawa’s personality throughout his extensive and productive international career.
Shown below is a three-page article aptly titled “The New World of Origami,” published in the magazine Asahi Graph, January 9, 1952.1 The text and illustrations were by Akira Yoshizawa, who possessed a singular ability to fashion paper figures. Decades later, the young artist, at that time virtually unknown in Japan, would be recognized throughout the world as the “father of modern origami.”
On a visit to the home of Gershon Legman’s widow in southern France in September 2012, I was given my first glimpse of his archives. My heart leapt when I saw the three pages of Asahi Graph magazine. Could it be that this was the legendary issue in which Yoshizawa had published his origami version of the Chinese zodiac? That it was became clear to me from the photos as well as the date written across the magazine in Legman’s unmistakable hand: January 9, 1952. Although many paperfolders had heard the story of the Yoshizawa zodiac over the intervening decades, few or even none had had the chance to see the article itself. What did the Japanese master’s earliest pieces look like? No one could say. Even David Lister, collector of countless bibliographic rarities, bemoaned not having had in his hands the Yoshizawa article in Asahi Graph:
“I have never seen this article, but I have read that three of the models were a rabbit, a snake and a dragon, so the figures were presumably the twelve animals which symbolized the successive years in China and Japan.”2
He was correct in this assumption.
And I was witnessing an extraordinary discovery. Before my eyes were the earliest known photographs of the artwork of Yoshizawa. What a stroke of good luck!3
With its large-scale photographic feature articles, Asahi Graph resembled Life magazine in the United States. It astonished its readers with current topics illustrated by impressive photographs. One of the magazine’s most profusely documented subjects involved the horrific consequences of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The photography critic Tadazu Iizawa was the editor of Asahi Graph, which also devoted space to cultural and artistic events in Japan.
According to David Lister, when Iizawa became aware of an artist in Tokyo with a special talent for folding paper figures, he contacted the editor with a proposal to produce a different kind of article in commemoration of the new year. Thus emerged the idea of creating a horoscope in origami.
Arriving at Yoshizawa’s modest home and finding him dressed in an old and ragged military uniform, his only garment, Iizawa booked him into a downtown hotel where he could live until his creations were ready. The images above are those that appeared in the original publication, featuring the animals of the zodiac and photos of Yoshizawa at work.
We can admire his exceptional ability. The two-dimensional figures he created at the end of 1951 were mostly constructed from two sheets of paper. Yoshizawa had not yet addressed himself to the challenge of developing four-legged figures from a single sheet, nor had he yet mastered the technique of wet-folding that would become one of his great contributions to the creation of three-dimensional figures. The illustrations follow the order of the horoscope. Reading counterclockwise beginning at the upper-left corner of the image, they are dog, pig, rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey and rooster. The tiger and goat are perhaps the least successful of these, but the rabbit, pig and rat are astonishing. The monkey is a typical Yoshizawa creation.
Was the Asahi Graph Article Yoshizawa’s Door to the West?
For many years, it was believed that the article in Asahi Graph magazine had served as the gateway for Yoshizawa’s introduction to the West. A presumption existed that Gershon Legman, the American who embraced Yoshizawa in the manner of a patron and organized his first European exhibition in 1955, had seen the Asahi Graph article and had then moved heaven and earth to contact the Japanese origamist.
“This was the unveiling of Yoshizawa’s genius to the world and it would be very interesting if the article from Asahi Graph could be reproduced,”4 Lister wrote with regret, since he had no idea how to obtain a copy of the publication.
It would have come as a surprise to Lister, however, to learn that this story was actually inaccurate. The artist’s global renown was sparked not by the Asahi Graph article, as he believed, but by a different, shorter article appearing elsewhere at a later time. As we will soon reveal, the latter publication was the source of Gershon Legman’s interest in striking up a dialog through written correspondence with Yoshizawa.
There can be no doubt, however, that the Asahi Graph article formed the bridge that allowed Yoshizawa to begin to disseminate his art throughout his native country. He immediately began to receive requests to appear in other publications such as the extremely popular Japanese magazine Fujin Koron.
It was in this publication that the emerging master, starting in March 1952, would take his first steps toward the widespread promulgation of origami.
Up to that point, Yoshizawa had only published his own diagrams in a small book by the veteran origami master Isao Honda. It seems that Honda had invited the young and promising artist to contribute to “Origami Shuko,” where Yoshizawa showed some of his earliest creations, each one of which bore his signature. Distributed during wartime, in 1944, its limited copies vanished from the market under somewhat mysterious circumstances at the end of the war.5 Partly for this reason, Yoshizawa remained out of the limelight until his discovery by Iizawa eight years later.
Publication in Fujin Koron magazine, which targeted a female readership, involved careful image placement in view of the restricted space where Yoshizawa could explain how he folded his paper creations. The master successfully honed a remarkable skill for communicating “more with less” using a set of line and arrow symbols, thus accomplishing what would have taken others several pages of cumbersome diagrams to achieve.
On December 15, a little less than a year following the noteworthy article in Asahi Graph magazine, a short, illustrated commentary on Yoshizawa appeared in the column “Mushimegane” (The Lens) in the Tokyo newspaper Asahi Shimbun.
It was this article, not the frequently cited piece in Asahi Graph, that motivated Gershon Legman, then living in New York City, to write to Yoshizawa for the first time.
Legman had never heard of him and might have remained unaware of his existence had it not been for Charles Hamilton, East Asia collections director at the University of California, Berkeley. Legman’s scholarly studies focused on erotic folklore, but his interests encompassed magic, card games and paper folding. For that reason, they were in regular correspondence and one day, Hamilton sent to Legman the “Mushimegane” clipping.
A portion of Hamilton’s letter, written precisely one month after the article’s publication in Asahi Shimbun, reads as follows:
“Miss Ikeda7 has called to my attention a recent newspaper item which may be of great interest to you. In Asahi Shimbun (Tokyo ed.) for Dec. 15, 1952, I:8, there is a story of Mr. Akira YOSHIZAWA, 41 years of age, who is an accomplished exponent of origami. There is a cut showing Mr. Yoshizawa with a six-foot snake which he fashioned out of some thirty newspapers and without the use of paste. It is an awesome creation, I assure you!”
Returned to Sender
That issue of Asahi Shimbun, therefore, was the initial source of Legman’s awareness of Akira Yoshizawa. The impact was obvious since, only five days after learning about Yoshizawa through Hamilton’s letter, Legman wrote to the artist:
“The article about your origami art in Asahi Shimbun for December 25th, 1952 has just come to my attention, and I am writing to express my admiration for your achievement in this field, and to acquaint you with my own interest.”
Several weeks later, when Legman opened his mailbox to find his own letter inside just as if it had never been sent, he realized that something had gone awry with the mail. His letter had not reached the recipient and had been returned to the sender.8
Believing the address to be incorrect, Legman did not write to Yoshizawa again. Strangely, this story was eclipsed over time by one that had no factual basis but has nevertheless become the dominant account until now. According to this version, Legman sent hundreds of unanswered letters to Yoshizawa with a persistence bordering on the obsessive, until finally, after months of assiduous effort, he was rewarded with the master’s written reply. We now know that these letters never existed, even though David Lister, lacking more compelling evidence at the time, assisted in spreading the rumor: “Some reports say that Legman wrote as many as two hundred or more letters without a reply.”9
Although their quantity is clearly exaggerated, Lister did not rule out the possibility that Legman had written an enormous number of letters. After all, Legman never refuted that account. But why would he do so? Perhaps he felt it would enhance his image as a diligent researcher to set up a false dichotomy in which he appeared as the more proactive member of the pair and Yoshizawa the more passive one, living in hope that something miraculous might occur to benefit him. Over time, the fallacious tale was reinforced with undeniable real-life elements such as the fact that the master lacked the funds to purchase postage stamps or pay a translator.
Crestfallen and not knowing how to proceed, Legman saved the letter after writing the word “returned” at the top.
He could scarcely imagine that shortly after discovering his first letter returned in the mail he would receive a parcel from Yoshizawa consisting of a multiple-page letter written in Japanese together with three of his origami creations. The package was like manna from heaven. How could Yoshizawa be writing to him? Had he somehow become aware of Legman? From where?
With the help of a translator, Legman read through the message and learned what had happened: Yoshizawa had become aware of Legman’s existence through a different letter, one that he had written to an artist named Saburo Ueda.
Ueda was a collaborator with Masamichi Takarada, editor of Fujin Koron magazine. Perhaps Ueda, rather than respond directly to Legman, had felt obliged to pass the letter on to his superior, who in turn had determined that the response should instead come from Akira Yoshizawa. It is possible to imagine a conversation involving the editor and his two subordinates and the instruction he would have given to Yoshizawa to clarify to Legman why the response could not come from Ueda, as Western logic might have indicated.
But it is important at this point to recall why Legman had contacted Ueda in the first place. It was a curious set of circumstances that invites us to ponder how accounts are constructed and linked to other events, some of these occurring in faraway places. The year 1952 had been important for Yoshizawa due to the publication of the illustrated article in Asahi Graph, which earned him visibility within his own country. That same year, meanwhile, on the other side of the planet in New York, Legman was working to collect information on origami books, paying from his own pocket the cost of publishing his “Bibliography of Paperfolding,” a detailed, eight-page catalog primarily listing European and American books.
His Japanese list was incomplete, and he set it aside for later publication. In his search for additional bibliographic resources, he discovered a small book by Saburo Ueda. This was a popular edition of children’s activities containing basic models, many of which combined origami with the kirigami technique for folding and cutting paper. Bearing the title “Origami to Kirinuki” (Origami for Cutting and Folding), it had been published in the previous year, 1951. While the content did not greatly interest him, he was especially drawn to a peacock that bore a resemblance to folds done by European artists such as Vicente Solórzano Sagredo or Giordano Lareo. These two paperfolders, who resided in Argentina, maintained correspondence with Legman. Why was this model appearing in a Japanese book? Was it a creation of Ueda, or had he copied it from some imported book? Out of curiosity, he decided to write to Ueda to learn how the model had reached his awareness.10
“I wonder if it would be impertinent of me to imagine that perhaps this has come to Japan from the West, as it is a folding known principally to the folders of Spain and South America, many of whom are of the school of our great philosopher, Miguel de Unamuno, who interested himself all his life in origami,” wrote Legman to Ueda in March 1953.
Searching for commonality, Legman took note of an interesting coincidence: The year 1953 marked a very special anniversary, the centennial of Japan’s reopening of commercial relations with the outside world following over two centuries of isolation. It seemed timely and meaningful to mention this to Ueda as a means of breaking the ice and obtaining the information he sought:
“It would be most fitting, in this auspicious year of the Japanese-Western centenary, if I might think that some of our lesser foldings have found their way back to that country from which this charming folk art comes.”11
This was the letter that landed in the hands of Takarada, who decided to bypass Ueda and respond personally but also asked Yoshizawa to step in on his behalf as the best paperfolder in his employ at that time.
It is obvious that Takarada was contemplating how to extend his connections to the West. The editor of Fujin Koron was not moved to respond concerning the peacock, which he regarded as irrelevant. His interest was in introducing Legman to Yoshizawa, his most talented collaborator. His strategy, while somewhat naïve, consisted of taking advantage of this unexpected link with Legman to sell more subscriptions in the West.
This is how Legman came to receive two surprising letters from Japan written just a day apart: one from Takarada and the other from Yoshizawa.
“Besides studying traditional origami, Yoshizawa has created over a thousand new designs,” wrote Takarada to justify why Ueda would not be writing the response. “At this point in time, the creations of Ueda and others cannot be compared with Yoshizawa’s work.”12
And Yoshizawa’s own letter also included a self-introduction:
“I have been asked to answer the letter you sent to Mr. Saburo Ueda through Fujin Koron. … I am delighted to find that there is someone across the seas who has similar interests as I.”
He also made quite clear the low esteem in which he held the Saburo Ueda volume:
“I have not met Mr. Ueda, but I have seen his book “Origami and kirinuki.” It is recommended by the Shakai Kyoiku rengo-kai, Society for Social Education, and the Nihon tosho-kan kyokai, Japanese Library Association. … Because Mr. Ueda has not sufficient knowledge of origami, there are errors in his diagrams; thus his work cannot be considered as a “recommended” book.”
Nor did he hide his disdain for Ueda’s having copied one of his models:
“The chicken in “Origami to kirinuki” by Mr. Ueda is my design and was taken from Fujin Koron.”
In a kind of coordinated choreography, Takarada corroborated what Yoshizawa had written.
“At this point the work of Ueda and others like him cannot be compared with that of Mr. Yoshizawa. Please interpret the Japanese art of origami and its traditional beauty through Mr. Yoshizawa’s work.”13
Mindful of the qualitative leap represented by the works of Yoshizawa, Takarada hoped to find an ally in the West:
“I hope that in the future, you, along with us, will contribute to world culture through origami art.”
In the same parcel, Legman was able to verify the gracefulness of Yoshizawa’s figures thanks to his inclusion of several pieces: “my original camel, chicken and peacock.”14
Yoshizawa’s approach was to demonstrate his art before commenting on it. Moreover, he believed that the moment for such discussion had not yet arrived: “As your letter was not addressed to me, I shall not write of my own work now.”15
Legman was amazed by the works, and, although funds were scarce due to his departure for France in a little more than two months, he sent Takarada payment covering his purchase of the publications in which Yoshizawa’s models appeared (Takarada had offered to send those back issues, which appeared between March and December 1952, at 120 yen per copy).
The fact that Yoshizawa would write to Legman without knowing what he actually wanted holds the key to understanding the power relation that was being established between the two. It is important to note that it was Yoshizawa who made the first successful contact with Legman. This action directly contradicts the well-established belief that their relationship was due to Legman’s extraordinary persistence, a result contrary to all evidence.
This re-envisioning transforms Yoshizawa from a passive actor in these events into an entrepreneur actively pursuing his own destiny.
We can imagine, although there is no way to demonstrate it, that it may indeed have been Legman himself who spread the rumor of the hundreds of letters that reinforced his undeniable image as a talent scout. It is certain, moreover, that he only narrowly failed to establish the first contact, a near miss that perhaps led him, out of inner frustration, to retell the story “as it should have happened” had fate not intervened to prevent his letter from arriving at its destination. In this version, he once again becomes the protagonist, the one who takes persistent action to awaken the artist, the winner who connects the genius to a new reality that rewards him with success.
Legman replied to Yoshizawa with congratulations for his work, with which he had become familiar through its publication in the Asahi Shimbun. He also shared his misfortunate first attempt to write to the artist.
“I have already attempted to make contact with you directly but my letter was returned by the Tokyo Central Post Office from the address given in the article in Asahi Shimbun for December 25th, 1952. The returning of my letter depressed me very much, as it was obvious from your serpent folded from thirty newspapers — an awesome creation! — that you must of course know a great deal more about the origami art than could be shown in the newspaper Asahi Shimbun.”16
As proof of what had happened to his letter, he sent Yoshizawa the envelope stamped “return to sender”:
“I enclose the envelope of this misdirected letter, not because I do not think you will not believe me, but to show you, to touch and to see ... how we have been reaching out to each other, simultaneously, from across the world, to meet in the origami art in this auspicious year of the meeting, one hundred years ago, of East and West.”
He closed his letter by emphasizing “how we have been reaching out to each other, simultaneously, from across the world.”
Neither Legman nor Yoshizawa ever made further comment concerning their earliest written exchange. Legman would have had his reasons, and Yoshizawa was beginning to plunge into a bustle of activity that would shortly take him far beyond his humble beginnings. The link to Saburo Ueda was awkward for him at this point, and the matter of letters returned to sender … it was all very complicated to explain, and there was so much to be done ...
It is a fact that Legman never wavered in his backing of Yoshizawa as time went on. He provided assistance on a regular basis, even sending him small quantities of money at times when his own financial situation was hardly secure. Legman’s support would result in the first exhibition by Yoshizawa in the West, which took place at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in October 1955. This topic will be the subject of a new article.
Endnotes
1. Ms. Nakahara, Japanese reference specialist at the Asian Division of the U.S. Library of Congress, facilitated the translation of the full citation of the Asahi Graph article, which is “Origami no Shinsekai,” Asahi Graph, Vol. 56, No. 2, Whole No. 1420 (Tokyo, Japan: Tokyo Asahi Shinbunsha,1952): 7-9. [back]
2. http://www.britishorigami.info/lister/yoshizawa_exhib1955.php. [back]
3. All efforts to contact Asahi Graph to obtain permission to reproduce these photos have so far proved unsuccessful. Due to the importance of this document, we elected to include the photos without having yet received a response from the magazine’s editors. [back]
4. https://britishorigami.info/lister/yoshi1.php. [back]
5. Joan Sallas has suggested that the disappearance of all copies of Origami Shuko may have been due to the illustration showing children waving the rising sun flag of the Japanese Empire, which was featured on one of the first pages of the book. It is possible that Isao Honda himself elected to get rid of these copies after the end of the war to avoid the accusation of being pro-imperialist. (Joan Sallas, personal communication, August 2, 2015). [back]
6. For the present research, a scanned copy of the Asahi Shimbun column was obtained through the kind assistance of Mari Nakahara, Japanese reference specialist at the Asian Division of the U.S. Library of Congress. The column is titled “Mushimegane,” meaning “Lens.” [back]
7. “Miss Ikeda” was Iroko Ikeda, a young graduate student writing her dissertation on Japanese folklore and working as a consultant on Japanese literature at the University of California, Berkeley library. (from Stith Thompson, A Folklorist’s Progress: Reflections of a Scholar’s Life (Indiana University Press, 1996): 307. [back]
8. Legman had sent his first letter to 69 Amanuma-1, Suginami-ku, Tokyo, an address that he got from an unknown source, perhaps from Hamilton, himself, because Legman had scribbled the address in the upper right corner of Hamilton’s letter. It appears that the address was Yoshizawa’s correct home address but that he did not receive mail there. In the future, Legman would address his letters to a post office box (P.O. Box 3, Ogikuboi, Suginami, Tokyo). [back]
9. http://www.britishorigami.info/lister/yoshizawa_exhib1955.php. [back]
10. Legman wrote to the Japanese Consulate in New York to obtain Ueda’s address. In turn, the consulate approached the Japan Travel Information Office, which wrote to Legman on March 23, 1953 to provide Ueda’s mailing address, which was in fact the Fujin Koron editorial office in Tokyo. [back]
11. Letter from Legman to Ueda, March 24, 1953. [back]
12. Letter from Takarada to Legman, May 13, 1953. [back]
13. Letter from Takarada to Legman, May 13, 1953. [back]
14. Letter from Yoshizawa to Legman, May 12, 1953. The peacock is the only origami figure from Yoshizawa’s letter that remains intact. It is part of the Legman archive at the Origami Museum. [back]
15. Ibid. [back]
16. Letter from Legman to Yoshizawa, May 21, 1953. [back]