The same face, eighty years apart: Naruko kokeshi and the art of handing something down
I have these two kokeshi in front of me. They are not a matched set. One is dark, the wood dense and contracted with age, the painted surface worn thin in places where hands have held it. The other is pale and clear, the red flowers on the body still vivid, the lathe work precise.
But the faces are almost identical.
Same closed eyes. Same faint smile. Same way the eyebrows curve. Same hair rendered in a few confident brushstrokes that somehow suggest a whole personality. Let’s dive deeper.
They were made by a father and his son. The father, Sakurai Shōji (桜井昭二), was born in Naruko in 1927. The son, Sakurai Akihiro (桜井昭寛), was born there in 1951. Both made kokeshi their entire lives. Both signed their work with the same family name on the base, in the same Naruko tradition their family has held for five generations. Sources: Kokeshi Wiki, Soulportals Kokeshi Village and conversations with specialists in Japan.
Where the face comes from
Shōji did not invent the face. He learned it from his mother, Sakurai Kou, who had learned it from the master Onuma Iwakura. In the Naruko tradition, the face is not a personal expression. It is a lineage. You receive it, you practice it until it becomes second nature, and then, if you are a maker worth the name, you pass it on.
Shōji began painting kokeshi faces as a teenager, guided by his mother. By the time he was working independently, probably in the late 1940s, the face was already his. Not copied — absorbed.
Akihiro started learning the woodturning from his father in 1970, and began painting faces in earnest in 1972. He has been making kokeshi for more than fifty years now. In 2012, he won the highest prize at the All Japan Kokeshi Festival in Naruko. The jury wrote that his work was "not a mere copy, but a fresh creation shaped by Akihiro's own sensibility." In 2014, he won again. "A work of unencumbered spirit, with a sense of maturity," the jury said that time.
The same face. A different hand. A different life behind it.
What you see when you look closely
The older doll tells its age in the wood. Naruko kokeshi are made from mizuki, a soft white wood that contracts slowly over decades. This one has pulled inward, the grain tightened, the surface taken on a warmth that new wood simply does not have. The paint has thinned where it was always touched. The signature on the base — 鳴子, 桜井昭二 — is written with the looseness of a young maker still finding his hand.
Shōji was probably between fifteen and twenty-five when he made this.
The younger one is in a different register entirely. The body is painted with large red chrysanthemums, full and confident. At the neck, just below the head, there is a carved relief band: a subtle, rhythmic pattern cut into the rotating wood with a vibrating chisel.
This technique, called biri-kanna, requires the maker to press a flexible blade against the spinning piece at exactly the right angle and pressure until it trembles and cuts a fine, regular groove. It takes years to control. It was a technique Shōji also used, and Akihiro has inherited it fully.
Why this matters
Left: Sakurai Shōji (桜井昭二), ca. 1942 to 1952. Right: Sakurai Akihiro (桜井昭寛),
Most kokeshi you find in the world are anonymous.
They were made for the tourist trade, quickly, in quantity, and signed with a kiln name rather than a maker's name. A signed piece from a documented maker is already something different.
A signed piece from a documented maker whose father is also documented, whose mother is documented, whose grandfather is documented — that is rare.
The Sakurai family has been making kokeshi in Naruko since the late Edo period. Five generations. The current youngest generation, Akihiro's son Naomichi (born 1988), is already working.
The face that Kou learned from Iwakura, that she taught to her son Shōji, that Shōji taught to Akihiro, is still being painted in the same town.
These two pieces are eighty years apart and sitting next to each other on my shelf. I find that genuinely hard to put down.
These two pieces are not yet listed in the shop — I am still working on the research and photographs. If you are interested before they go live, write to me at hello@kaikoandco.com. I am always happy to tell you more, or to set something aside.
