Yoshihara Yoshindo
吉原義人 (Yoshihara Yoshindo)
A Tokyo smith born in 1943 into a family of smiths; mukansa since 1982, first winner of the Takamatsu-no-miya prize and teacher of many of today's smiths.
Profile
He was born in 1943 in Setagaya, Tokyo, eldest son of the smith Yoshihara Masahiro, the second Yoshihara Kuniie, and grandson of the first Kuniie, one of the most reputed smiths of eastern Japan before the war; as a child he already helped at the family forge. He obtained his smith's licence in 1965, together with his brother Shōji, the third Kuniie. In 1972 he won the special prize of the new-sword exhibition, and the following year he was the first to receive the Takamatsu-no-miya prize, which he won twice more. In 1982 he was made mukansa together with his brother, and he has forged the Ise shrine tachi three times; he holds an intangible cultural property of Tokyo. Until 1970 he worked mainly in Sōshū-den and afterwards in Bizen-den, with tamahagane. He has trained many smiths and made the sword known outside Japan; in 1980 he set up a demonstration forge in Dallas.
Monograph
Yoshihara Yoshindo (吉原義人)
A swordsmith from a Tokyo family of swordsmiths who took the Bizen-den to the top of the NBTHK competition, told with the level of evidence of each fact.
Read the monograph
Notable works
- Katana: plate 25 of the Gendaitō Meisaku Zukan (p. 51).
- Tachi: plate 26 of the Gendaitō Meisaku Zukan (p. 53).
Rankings
- Mukansa since 1982