Isao Kumakura

Japanese cultural historian Kumakura Isao is the director of the Miho Museum in Japan and director of the Tea Museum. He received his BA, MA, and a DLitt in Japanese cultural history from the Tokyo University of Education. He has been a lecturer at the Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University; professor in the History and Anthropology Department, University of Tsukuba, and at the National Museum of Ethnology; director of the Hayashibara Museum of Art; and president of Shizuoka University of Art and Culture.

His wide-ranging research interests and activities include the history of the tea ceremony, Kan’ei era (mid-seventeenth century) Japanese culture, the history of Japanese food culture, and the mingei or folk art movement. Among his published works are Cultural Atlas of Japan (1988), coedited with Martin Collcutt and Marius Jansen; Tea in Japan: Essays on the History of Chanoyu (1989), coedited with Paul Varley; Chanoyu no rekishi: Sen no Rikyū made (The History of Chanoyu: Until Sen no Rikyū; 1990); and Nihon ryōri no rekishi (The History of Japanese Cuisine; 2007). A seven-volume collection of his works was published as Kumakura Isao chosakushū (The Collected Writings of Kumakura Isao) in 2016–2017.