Katori Hotsuma is a metalwork artist who left a significant mark on the history of modern crafts. Born in Chiba Prefecture, Hidema entered the Tokyo School of Fine Arts in 1892. After graduating from the school's metalwork department, he won numerous awards at exhibitions and became a successful metalworker. His style was based on the highly advanced traditional techniques and classical Japanese and oriental patterns and shapes, but also incorporated a contemporary sensibility and placed importance on practicality.
He trained many young artists and worked hard to develop the craft world as a whole, playing a central role in the movement to establish an arts and crafts category at the Teiten Exhibition. He also devoted himself to the study of metalwork, which became the starting point of the history of Japanese metalwork. For these achievements, he was the first craftsman to receive the Order of Culture in 1953. He was also known as a poet of the Araragi school under the tutelage of Masaoka Shiki, and was active in many fields.
Hidemasa had many opportunities to visit Matsumoto, as his wife was originally from what is now Shiojiri City, Nagano Prefecture, and he was evacuated to the outskirts of Matsumoto for about three years from 1944. During that time, he formed warm relationships with the family members of his evacuated home and with Matsumoto's literary figures, and these relationships continued uninterrupted even after the war, for example by making temple bells for temples in Matsumoto.
To commemorate the 150th anniversary of his birth and the 70th anniversary of his death, his masterpieces will be gathered together in Matsumoto, the place with which he was associated.

List of works

Katori Hidemasa (1874-1954, real name Hidejiro)

He was a metal caster from Chiba Prefecture. After graduating from Tokyo School of Fine Arts (now Tokyo University of the Arts), he became a lecturer there before becoming a professor and also active as a researcher of metalwork. He also studied tanka under Masaoka Shiki and composed about 4 tanka as a poet of the Negishi school. He often visited Nagano Prefecture, where his wife's family lives, and evacuated to Matsumoto during the war. In later years, he became friends with Matsumoto writer Ikegami Kisaku (pen name: Hyakutaketei), and the fact that the Ikegami Hyakutaketei Collection, now housed at the Matsumoto City Museum of Art, contains many of Hidemasa's tanka, calligraphy, paintings, and crafts, speaks to the depth of their friendship.