FEATURED BOOK REVIEW

Nippon Suiseki Association, Tokyo. 216 pp. No ISBN. 3000 Yen when published. In Japanese and English.

The publication of the 62^st Exhibition of Japanese Suiseki Masterpieces (Meihinten) is an anticipated and welcomed event in the global viewing stone community. The Meihinten name was held in June each year at the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo for several decades. Two years ago, this major exhibition was merged with the Japan Suiseki Exhibition held in February at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. The resulting combination continued using the Meihinten. This is the finest and largest annual exhibition of viewing stones in Japan.

This volume is a catalog of their exhibition held February 14-18, 2025. The catalog is divided into six sections: Special Entries, Tokonoma Displays, a single Guest Entry, General Exhibits, Entries from Abroad, and lastly, a section of tokonoma displays from the Bonsai Museum in Saitama. There were 78 displays by Japanese collectors and 19 entries from foreign stone collectors. This year a special exhibit of 15 exceptional stones from the Okawa was included in this volume. This was a nice addition due to the superior quality of these stones which are rarely seen in a public display. The number of people participating in this major event is slowly declining. The exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum ten years earlier (2015) had 127 people exhibiting stones as compared with 97 in this year’s event.

The limited text for the 2023 and 2024 tokonoma displays from the Saitama Bonsai Museum was in Japanese only and did not explain why this section was added to this catalog. The value of these displays would have been increased with a single introductory page in Japanese and English. This section appears to be a last-minute addition to this book.