The Masters
Nobuo Taniguchi
谷口信夫
Master Inami Woodcarver
Nobuo Taniguchi was born in Inami in 1948, the eldest son of the carver Sōun Taniguchi, and has worked in the family workshop for more than half a century. Alongside ranma and architectural carving he makes carved vessels that open: boxes shaped from seeds, fruit, clouds and wind, made to be used as well as admired. He has twice received the Special Selection at Nitten, Japan’s largest juried art exhibition, and in 2026 was named one of its jurors.
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His Father’s Workshop
Nobuo grew up in the workshop of his father, Sōun Taniguchi (谷口草雲), who had trained under Ōshima Goun II and became known for landscape ranma, a rare specialty in Inami. From the upper years of elementary school Nobuo helped where he could, planing ranma boards and tracing designs onto the wood with carbon paper.
He never doubted he would follow his father. In junior high school, asked to write about his future, he wrote that he wanted to be a woodcarver exhibiting at Nitten. After high school he became his father’s pupil and spent five years at the local training school for carvers, in a class of ten; Saburō Aoyama was one of his classmates.
Sōun was not a harsh master. He left his son free to make his own exhibition pieces even when commissions were plentiful, and Nobuo learned, as he puts it, by watching his father at work, often late into the night. What Sōun pressed on him was attitude more than technique: take your work seriously, and never cut corners.
“I may not have been a good apprentice, but he let me be a good son.”
1971
Nitten
A Childhood Ambition
He was first accepted at Nitten in 1971 and has been accepted more than forty times since. He received its Special Selection in 2016 for Life Form (生命体) and again in 2023 for Song of the Earth (大地のうた), a box carved in zelkova, shown below among his selected works. He thought the second entry might be his last chance, set his other work aside to make it, and could scarcely believe the news. He calls himself a late bloomer, and is glad he did not stop.
His father had hoped to make exhibition work of his own but was kept from it by commissions. Others told Nobuo later how proudly Sōun had spoken of his son’s acceptance at Nitten, though he never said so to him directly.
Life Form (生命体), Special Selection, Nitten, 2016. Zelkova outside and Japanese cypress within, the tray inlaid with other woods. The jury admired the vitality of its plant forms and the power of its shaping, like a new creature.
How He Works
Forms from Nature
His forms begin outdoors. He collects fallen nuts and seedpods, looks for the curves of flowers in the mountains and fields around Inami, and watches the sky, because no two clouds are ever the same shape. Seeds and the emergence of new life return again and again in his work: a walnut opening, a paulownia fruit splitting, a swelling bean.
He draws a form many times over, cuts the outlines from paper and pins them to the wall beside earlier versions, comparing them until the line is right. The smallest change, he says, alters the whole shape. Only then does the work go into wood.
From his father he learned subtraction: leave out what is unnecessary, so that the strength of the form and of the material comes through.
“I try to leave out what is unnecessary. But that is the hardest thing.”
“I work with the feeling that I am moving even the air around the object.”
Swelling Happiness (幸ふくらむ), zelkova. The plump shoots of butterbur, a gift of early spring in Japan, carved as a box that opens.
Kōgei
Made to Be Used
Taniguchi calls his work kōgei, craft in its older sense: things made to serve people in daily life. He sees no contradiction between beauty of form and use, and notes that few of the artists exhibiting at Nitten work this way. His exhibition pieces open into bowls, become two-tier boxes lacquered vermilion inside for food, or hold a bottle, and several of his Nitten works have found owners.
He feels affection for every piece, because each one took so much time and effort, and letting a good one go can be hard. But a work made with care, he believes, will be loved and looked after by whoever owns it.
Hometown (故郷), zelkova and pine. The mountains of home, as he sees them stepping out of the house, carved as a case that holds a bottle.
Selected Works
Vessels That Open
From his current portfolio, each shown closed and opened. Inside is a box, a tray or a hollow.
Father and Son
His Father’s Ranma, Bound for Florida
In 1981 Sōun carved seven ranma for Kenkenochin, a restaurant beside Kenrokuen Garden in Kanazawa. Nobuo, then a younger carver in the workshop, helped with details of pine, bamboo and plum, and in the Natadera landscape he can still find the pine he carved above Sōjiji.
In 2025 he examined the panels again and confirmed them as his father’s work. He found four of Sōun’s preparatory sketches, and in 2026 he cleaned the panels and repaired them with offcuts of the same camphor, kept since their making. The seven ranma are now being donated to the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens in Florida.
“He could not exhibit them at Nitten, but this is even more glorious than Nitten. I think he would be delighted.”
Teaching
Passing It On
Taniguchi has opened his workshop to young carvers from abroad, who have trained with him and with other masters in Inami, and he says he learns from how seriously they take the work. One of them, Asaya, remembers the lesson he was given: art should be beautiful, and that is the main thing.
What worries him is not skill but work. As commissions for ranma have declined, younger carvers have fewer chances to learn what those commissions once taught, and without enough work, he says, there can be no successors. He believes Inami should speak to the world, and do it together, with its younger makers.
“There are still things I want to do in carving. I am not finished yet.”
Recognition
A Life in Exhibitions
Current roles
Juror, craft art, Nitten (2026)
Director, Nihon Shinkōgei Federation
Vice-chair, Toyama Prefectural Art Federation
- 1948Born in Inami, the eldest son of the carver Sōun Taniguchi
- 1971First accepted at Nitten
- 1979Exhibits at the first Nihon Shinkōgei exhibition
- 1987Grand prize, 42nd Toyama Prefectural Art Exhibition
- 1992Invited to the international woodcarving camp in Debrecen, Hungary
- 1994Invited to Bratsk, Russia; two-person exhibition with Saburō Aoyama
- 2011Living Now (今・生きる) enters the collection of the Tonami Art Museum
- 2012Chōsa Yoshiyuki Memorial Award, Nihon Shinkōgei, for Power of Life (生命の力)
- 2016Special Selection, Nitten, craft art, for Life Form (生命体)
- 2017Education Minister’s Award, 39th Nihon Shinkōgei, for The Story of Life (生命の物語)
- 2018Carves the heroine’s wooden whistle for NHK’s morning drama Hanbun, Aoi
- 2023Special Selection, Nitten, craft art, for Song of the Earth (大地のうた)
- 2025Chief juror, 47th Nihon Shinkōgei exhibition
- 2026Open-Air Museum Award, 48th Nihon Shinkōgei, for Words of the Forest (森のことば)
- 2026Juror, craft art, 119th Nitten
Commission a Work
To ask about a commission, or about one of his works, get in touch with Poiesis.
