Sachio Yoshioka 1946 – 2019
Photo credit: Jeremie Souteyrat, courtesy of Japan House London.
The Japanese natural dyer and textile historian Sachio Yoshioka unexpectedly passed away on 30th September in Aichi prefecture, Japan.
Yoshioka dedicated his life to reviving and preserving techniques of natural dyeing, giving lectures and workshops in Japan and internationally. Yoshioka wrote many books on the topic - one of the most famous being The Dictionary of Japanese Colours, which explains the narrative behind 466 colours that originated in Japan.
Yoshioka succeeded as the fifth-generation head of Kyoto’s Somenotsukasa Yoshioka dye workshop in 1988. When he took over the family business he abandoned the use of synthetic colours in favour of dyeing solely with plants and other natural materials. The workshop uses only plants and other natural materials to produce a wide range of extremely beautiful colours.
Image credit: V&A
Yoshioka was especially active in reviving ‘forgotten’ colours like those found on textiles preserved in the 8th-century Shosoin Imperial Repository in Nara.
Yoshioka had just completed his exhibition Living Colours: Kasane - the Language of Japanese Colour Combination at the Japan House in London, which ran from April to May 2019. You can read more about the exhibition in a Selvedge blog post, Living Colour.
Photo credit: Jeremie Souteyrat, courtesy of Japan House London.
Work from the Somenotsukasa Yoshioka dye workshop was also recently displayed at the V&A in the In Search of Forgotten Colours exhibition. Yoshioka made two gifts of naturally dyed textile and paper samples to the V&A and the process of creating these samples was recorded for a documentary broadcast in Japan in May 2017. An edited version of the film can be watched online.
Yoshioka exhibited his work internationally and had even collaborated with CHANEL to produce red lipsticks. He received the Kikuchi Kan Award in 2010 and Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) Cultural Award in 2011.
Yoshioka was profiled in Selvedge Issue 11 Vivid in 2006, you can read the extract here, Man for All Seasons.
3 comments
This was wonderful to watch! I hope the knowledge of the natural dyes process continues to be passed on. Thank you for making and sharing this video with the world!
I was honoured to do a workshop with Yoshioka San in Norwich in 2010 and was interviewed about my work with natural dyes in his film Murasaki whilst a student at NUA. We met again at the V&A when his new display and films had just been launched and I was so thrilled to visit his stunning exibition at Japan House earlier this year. A true national treasure with a beautiful nature. Hopefully hIs legacy continues with his daughter’s work.
What painstaking work goes in to produce such beautiful colours and cloth. It was fascinating to watch the process.