Tomoko Fuse

Tomoko Fuse was born in Niigata in 1951. He is a renowned Japanese origamist and author of many books on modular origami.

Fuse started origami as a child and when reach the age of 19 she studied for two and a half years with origami master Toyoaki Kawai. In 1981 she published her first book and since then published over more. Her origami designs include boxes, kusudama, paper toys, masks, modular polyhedra, as well as other geometric forms and objects, such as origami tessellations. She now resides with her husband, a respected woodblock printmaker and etcher, in rural Nagano prefecture, Japan.

Unit Origami: Multidimensional Transformations, the English language edition of her seminal modular origami inventions, may be considered the classic text on modular origami available in the English language.

Publications

• Spiral: Origami/Art/Design, Viereck Verlag, 2012, ISBN 978-3-941327-06-1
• Floral Origami Globes, Japan Publications Trading, May 18, 2007, ISBN 978-4-88996-213-0
• Origami Rings & Wreaths: A Kaleidoscope of 28 Decorative Origami Creations, Japan Publications Trading, Nov 2007 ISBN 978-4-88996-223-9
• Kusudama Origami, Japan Publications, Sep 2002, ISBN 978-4-88996-087-7
• Fabulous Origami Boxes, Japan Publications, July 1998 ISBN 978-0-87040-978-3
• Quick and Easy Origami Boxes, Japan Publications 1994, ISBN O-87040-939-5
• Unit Origami: Multidimensional Transformation, Japan Publications, April 1990, ISBN 978-0-87040-852-6
• Origami Boxes: Moribana Style, Japan Publications, June 1975, ISBN 978-0-87040-821-2
• Easy Origami to Enliven Your Life (Kurashi o Irodoru Raku Raku no Origami) Ishizue Publishers (July 1996), ISBN 978-4-900747-10-4

Robert Harbin

Robert Harbin was born Ned Williams on 14th February 1908 in Balfour, South Africa. not only was he an origamist but was also a magician and author of many books. He invented a number of classic illusions such as the Zig Zag Girl, the Neon Light, the Aztec Lady, The Blades of Opah and Aunt Matilda’s Wardrobe.

Ned interest in magic was first aroused when an ex-serviceman performed a magic show at his school. He later described the show as “rather poor”. In 1928 he came to London and worked in the magic department of Gamages toy shop. Under the name “Ned Williams, the Boy Magician from South Africa” he started performing in music halls and by 1932 he was appearing in the Maskelyne’s Mysteries magic show at a number of London theatres.

He is known as one of the most prodigious authors on the subject of magical effects. However, although Harbin was brilliantly creative in the field of magic he was not a particularly good writer and his friend and associate Eric C Lewis has stated that many of Harbin’s titles were ghost written for him.

He also appeared in a minor part as a magician in the film The Limping Man in 1952, produced by Cy Endfield and an episode of Randall and Hopkirk (entitled “It’s supposed to be thicker than water”).
It was in 1953 that Harbin and a friend of Endfield, Gershon Legman (1917-1999), discovered a common interest origami. Harbin started writing books on the subject his first book being “Paper Magic” (illustrated by the young art student, the Australian Rolf Harris who in the middle of the project, caught the origami idea and contributed several intricate models himself) in 1965.
Harbin was the first President of the British Origami Society and he was the first Westerner to use the word origami for this art-form. He also presented a series of origami programmes for ITV in its “Look-In” magazines for children in the 1970’s.

He died on 12th January 1978 Westminster, London, UK, and his grave is at Golders Green Crematorium in London.

Publications

• Paper Magic: The art of paper folding, Oldbourne, 1956, ASIN B0000CJG8R
• Paper Folding Fun, Oldbourne, 1960, ASIN B0000CKUYQ
• Secrets of Origami, old and new: The Japanese art of paper-folding, Oldbourne, 1963, ASIN B0000CM4YW
• Teach Yourself Origami, Hodder, 1968, ISBN 0-340-05972-9
• Origami 1: The Art of Paper-Folding, Coronet, 1969, ISBN 0-340-10902-5
• More Origami, The art of paper-folding no.2, Hodder, 1971, ISBN 0-340-15384-9
• Origami 2: The Art of Paper-Folding, Coronet, 1971, ISBN 0-340-15384-9
• Origami 3: The Art of Paper-Folding, Coronet Books/Hodder, 1972, ISBN 0-340-16655-X
• Secrets of Origami, Octopus, 1972, ISBN 0-7064-0005-4
• Origami: Art of Paper Folding (Teach Yourself), Hodder, 1973, ISBN 0-340-16646-0
• Origami Step by Step, Hamlyn, 1974, ISBN 0-600-38109-9
• Have Fun with Origami, ITV, 1975, ISBN 0-900727-26-8
• Origami: Art of Paper Folding (Illustrated Teach Yourself), Picture Knight, 1975, ISBN 0-340-19381-6
• Origami A/H, Hodder Arnold, 1976, ISBN 0-340-27950-8
• Origami 4, Robert Harbin, 1977, ISBN 0-340-21822-3
• Have Fun with Origami, Severn Ho., 1977, ISBN 0-7278-0225-9
• Origami: Art of Paper Folding (Coronet Books), Hodder Headline Australia, 1977, ISBN 0-340-21822-3
• New Adventures in Origami, 1982, Harper & Row, ISBN 0-06-463555-4

Makoto Yamaguchi

Makoto Yamaguchi was born in Tokyo in 1944. After being appointed a secretary of the Nippon Origami Association, he became a professional origami designer. He founded “Origami House” in 1989, Japan’s first origami gallery, which showcases the works of origami creators. He is currently a member of the Board and the Secretary of Japan Origami Academic Society and a member of the Board of Trustees of Nippon Origami Association

He is actively involved with origami associations globally. JOAS (Japanese Origami Academic Society) Board of Directors President; Board member of NOA (Nippon Origami Association); lifetime member of OrigamiUSA, member of British Origami Society and Chief Editor of “Origami Tanteidan” magazine.

Publications

• Let’s Enjoy Paper Folding Vol.1: Origami Flowers and Vegetables
• Let’s Enjoy Paper Folding: Vol. 2: Animals
• Kusudama Ball Origami
• Tanoshii Origami Tenshu
• Joyful Life with Origami/Kurashi ni Yakudatsu Jitsuyou Origami
• Origami in English

Miguel de Unamuno

Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (29 September 1864 – 31 December 1936) was a Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright, philosopher, and Greek professor and later rector at the University of Salamanca.

His major philosophical essay was The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), and his most famous novel was Abel Sánchez: The History of a Passion (1917), a modern exploration of the Cain and Abel story.

Biography

Miguel de Unamuno was born in Bilbao, a port city of Basque Country, the son of Félix de Unamuno and Salomé Jugo. As a young man, he was interested in the Basque language and competed for a teaching position in the Instituto de Bilbao against Sabino Arana. The contest was finally won by the Basque scholar Resurrección María de Azkue.

Unamuno worked in all major genres: the essay, the novel, poetry, and theater, and, as a modernist, contributed greatly to dissolving the boundaries between genres. There is some debate as to whether Unamuno was in fact a member of the Generation of ’98, an ex post facto literary group of Spanish intellectuals and philosophers that was the creation of José Martínez Ruiz — a group that includes Antonio Machado, Azorín, Pío Baroja, Ramón del Valle-Inclán, Ramiro de Maeztu, and Ángel Ganivet, among others.

Unamuno would have preferred to be a philosophy professor, but was unable to get an academic appointment; philosophy was in Spain somewhat politicized. Instead he became a Greek professor.

In addition to his writing, Unamuno played an important role in the intellectual life of Spain. He served as rector of the University of Salamanca for two periods: from 1900 to 1924 and 1930 to 1936, during a time of great social and political upheaval. Unamuno was removed from his two university chairs by the dictator General Miguel Primo de Rivera in 1924, over the protests of other Spanish intellectuals. He lived in exile until 1930, first banished to Fuerteventura, one of the Canary Islands; his house there is now a museum,[1] as is his house in Salamanca. From Fuerteventura he escaped to France, as related in his book De Fuerteventura a Paris. After a year in Paris, Unamuno established himself in Hendaye, a border town in the French Basque Country, as close to Spain as he could get while remaining in France. Unamuno returned to Spain after the fall of General Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship in 1930 and took up his rectorship again. It is said in Salamanca that the day he returned to the University, Unamuno began his lecture by saying “As we were saying yesterday…” (Decíamos ayer…) as Fray Luis de León had done in the same place in 1576, after four years of imprisonment by the Inquisition. It was as though he had not been absent at all. After the fall of Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship, Spain embarked on its Second Republic. He was a candidate for the small intellectual party Agrupación al Servicio de la República. He always was a moderate and refused all political and anticlerical extremisms.

Having begun his literary career as an internationalist, Unamuno gradually became convinced of the universal values of Spanish culture, feeling that Spain’s essential qualities would be destroyed if influenced too much by outside forces. Thus he welcomed Franco’s revolt as necessary to rescue Spain from the excesses of the Second Republic.[2] However, the harsh tactics employed by the Francoists in the struggle against their republican opponents caused him to oppose both the Republic and Franco. Unamuno said of the military revolt that it would be the victory of “a brand of Catholicism that is not Christian and of a paranoid militarism bred in the colonial campaigns,” referring in the latter case to the 1921 war with Abd el-Krim in what was then Spanish Morocco. (Franco’s 1936 revolt also started from Spanish Morocco.)[3]

In 1936 Unamuno had a public quarrel with the Nationalist general Millán Astray at the University in which he denounced both Astray—with whom he had had verbal battles in the 1920s—and elements of the rebel movement. He called the battle cry of the elite armed forces group named La Legión—”Long live death!”—repellent and suggested Astray wanted to see Spain crippled. One historian notes that his address was a “remarkable act of moral courage” and that he risked being lynched on the spot but was saved by Franco’s wife who took him out of the place. Shortly afterwards, Unamuno was effectively removed for a second time from his university post. Broken-hearted, he was placed under house arrest, and his death followed ten weeks later, on December 31.[4] Unamuno died while sleeping, which he regarded as the best and most painless way to die.

Unamuno was a well-known lusophile, being probably the best Spanish connoisseur of Portuguese culture, literature, and history of his time. He believed it was as important for a Spaniard to become familiar with the great names of Portuguese literature as with those of Catalan literature. He was also a supporter of Iberian Federalism.

In the final analysis Unamuno’s significance is that he was one of a number of notable interwar intellectuals, along with luminaries such as Julien Benda, Karl Jaspers, Johan Huizinga, and José Ortega y Gasset, who resisted the intrusion of ideology into western intellectual life.[5]

Florence Temko

Florence Maria Temko (October 20, 1921 – November 12, 2009), a pioneer in spreading origami in the United States, was perhaps the most prolific author on this subject. With fifty-five books to her credit on paper arts and folk crafts, she was a strong influence on interested beginners in the art of paperfolding. Some of them later developed complex origami designs previously unimaginable and applied their expertise into advanced innovations in the fields of art and science.

Early life

She was born Florence Maria Marx, in London, the daughter of Erich and Erna Marx. She studied at Wycombe Abbey, St. George’s Business College and the London School of Economics, but her education was interrupted by World War II. She also studied at the New School for Social Research in New York.

Personal life

She met US Army Sergent Leonard Temko, and they married in 1945. In 1946, they settled in New Jersey and had three children: Joan A Temko, and twins Stephen Temko and Ronald Temko.

They divorced in 1968, and she married her second husband Henry Petzel in 1969. In 1982, they moved to San Diego, and divorced in the late 1990s.

Later work

Her credits include audience participating lectures and workshops at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She made two films for The National Film Board of Canada and BFA Educational Films. Florence authored 12 craft books including, in cooperation with the U.S. Committee for UNICEF, the book “Folk Crafts For World Friendship” (illustrated by Yaroslava Surmach Mills)which describes crafts from many nations, including the craft’s origin, customs relating to the craft and step-by-step instructions.

Her involvement as a consultant to the Mingei International Museum in San Diego, California, resulted in the mounting of the “Masterworks of Origami” exhibition there in 2003. Other museums in the United States and other countries subsequently recognized origami as an art form and set up their own exhibitions.

Her books continue to circulate well, especially in libraries, because readers find they can follow the clear step-by-step directions easily and there are various levels of complexity presented in each book. Among the many original origami designs created by her are some of the most popular: Rooster, Penguin, Star Bowl, Squawker Action Toy, Mortar Board Graduation Hat, Thanksgiving Turkey, and the Zig-Zag Sculpture.

She died on November 12, 2009 at her home in La Jolla, California.

Jeremy Shafer

Jeremy Shafer (born c. 1973) is a professional entertainer and origamist based in Berkeley, California. He has been folding origami since he was ten. He creates his own origami designs which tend to be whimsical and ridiculous, such as his “Man Swatter” and “BARF Bag”. Shafer is sometimes billed as Jeremy the Juggler, and his stunts include folding a burning origami bird, riding a flaming unicycle, and juggling torches. Personal Life Jeremy Shafer grew up in Berkeley, California. He went to high school at Berkeley High School and graduated in 1991. He attended college at University of California, Santa Cruz and graduated in 1995 with a Bachelor of Arts in Math. He then later decided to pursue his career as a professional child entertainer. Shafer is fluent in Spanish and can also speak some French, Italian, and Japanese. Shafer got married in 2004. He and his wife now live in Berkeley, California. Career Shafer has taught at multiple workshops and camps for both children and adults.He taught for 13 summers at Camp Winnarainbow, a circus-arts/activities camp in California. He has taught scientists how to design their own origami models as an exercise in problem solving. He was an active member of ((OrigamiUSA)) and publishes a quarterly newsletter for the San Francisco Bay Area origami group, BARF (Bay Area Rapid Folders, a play on BART, Bay Area Rapid Transit). However, he decided to resign to focus on his YouTube channel. He has four YouTube channels which are called Jeremyevents, Jeremyshafervariety, Jeremyshaferorigami, and Simple Balloon Animals. Out of all four, jeremyshaferorigami is his most popular channel, where he teaches how to fold new origami models that he designed, as well as some from his books. The channel has over 60,000,000, subscribers, and over 21,000,000 views. Publications Origami to Astonish and Amuse. St. Martin’s Griffin, 2001. ISBN 0-312-25404-0 Origami Ooh La La! CreateSpace, 2010. ISBN 1-4564-3964-2 Origami Pop-Ups to Amaze and Amuse. CreateSpace, December 2013. ISBN 1-494-29902-X

Nick Robinson

Nick Robinson is a British paperfolder. He was awarded the Sydney French medal in 2004 by the British Origami Society and is a Honorary Member of the British Origami Society.

He has folded a kaleidoscope of projects over the course of his career, but is drawn to folding containers, masks, and simple designs.

Robinson has used his origami skills in several different commercial projects over the course of his career, including creating a trophy for the British Book Design and Production Awards and designing models for Kelloggs “Art Attack” promotion. He also created origami models as part of an effort to promote a book called “The Airman” by Eion Colfer.

Although he has been working as a professional origami teacher since 1984, Robinson was formerly a professional musician, performing with Typhoon Saturday, the Comsat Angels and Neil Ardley.

Publications

Robinson is a prolific author, having written over 50 books of origami. Some of the books written by Robinson include:

World’s Best Origami 2010 ISBN 978-1615640539
Origami For Dummies Wiley & Co 2008 ISBN 978-0-470-75857-1
Picture Perfect Origami St. Martin’s Griffin 2008 ISBN 978-0-312-37596-6
The Origami Giftbox Firefly Books 2006. ISBN 978-1-55407-198-2
A Beginners Guide to Origami Parragon Books, 2006. ISBN 1-4054-5048-7
Encyclopedia of Origami Quarto Publishing 2005. ISBN 1-84448-025-9
Pub Origami New Holland Publishers 2005. ISBN 1-84330-935-1
Adult Origami New Holland Publishers 2004. ISBN 1-84330-744-8
The Origami Bible Collins & Brown 2004. ISBN 1-84340-105-3
Paper Planes that Really Fly Quintet Publishing 1992. ISBN 1-85076-325-9
You can also find diagrams for folding some of Robinson’s original models on his personal website.

Samuel Randlett

Samuel L Randlett is an origami artist who helped develop the modern system for diagramming origami folds. Together with Robert Harbin he developed the notation introduced by Akira Yoshizawa to form what is now called the Yoshizawa-Randlett system. This was first described in Samuel Randlett’s Art of Origami in 1961.

Samuel Randlett was born January 11, 1930. He graduated from Northwestern University and became a music professor; he still teaches piano. He became interested in paper-folding in 1958 and within a year had his own figures on display at the Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration in New York.[2] At the age of 30 started work on The Art of Origami. His first wife Jean illustrated this and most of his subsequent books. He came to know most of the then fairly small origami community around the world and edited an origami newsletter called The Flapping Bird from 1969 to 1976.

Bibliography

Samuel Randlett (1961). The Art of Origami; Paper Folding, Traditional and Modern. E P Dutton. ISBN 978-0-525-05834-2.
Samuel Randlett (1963). The Best of Origami;: New models by contemporary folders. Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-10275-1.
Samuel Randlett (1968). Folding Money Volume Two.
Samuel Randlett; Jean Randlett (1968). Basic Paper Folding.
Samuel Randlett; Jean Randlett (1968–1976). The Flapping Bird on Origami Monthly. Origami USA.

Ligia Montoya

Ligia Montoya (February 23, 1920 – April 4, 1967): Argentinian paper-folding artist, who played an important role in all aspects of the ‘golden age’ of the international origami movement from the 1950s, from which developed modern artistic origami—that is, innovative paper-folding exploring a variety of different approaches, rather than repeating limited traditional figures.

Ligia Montoya was born in the Province of Buenos Aires in the Republic of Argentina, where she lived most of her life. Of a shy and retiring nature, she nevertheless came into extended correspondence with leading paperfolders internationally, and to be highly respected, as the “Angel of Origami”, and thus influential in the development of this modern art. Although she never published a projected book of her numerous designs, she posted many original models abroad. Pertinent biographical facts remain sketchy and in places tentative. Until recently, there was not even a firm date for her birth from which to measure. Accordingly, the following account is hypothetical, to invite interest, correction and supplement.

In youth Ligia Montoya travelled from Buenos Aires to Spain, where she completed elementary then high school education. With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and the closing of universities in 1936, she returned to Argentina, enrolling in literature at Universidad de Buenos Aires and studying for a second degree in library science (bibliotecológicas). Beginning in 1938 in Córdoba, Argentina, Dr Vicente Solórzano Sagredo published an ambitious series of origami books. At first these were illustrated with photographs; then he employed Ligiaa Montoya to do careful drawings, before any international standard notation had been developed. However, her work there, not only as illustrator but, necessarily, as analyst—even improver—of his folds, as well as innovator in diagram notation, went unacknowledged.[3] Ligia Montoya next joined in extended communication with American Gershon Legman, with whom she worked cooperatively for years on technical and artistic aspects of paperfolding. Her most celebrated analytic accomplishment was reconstruction of the base for the famous dragonfly from the Japanese Kayaragusa, published in 1958 in Origamian, the journal of the newly formed (New York) Origami Center (now OrigamiUSA). Through this journal and Legman’s connections, in time Ligia Montoya communicated extensively with the founder of the Center, Lillian Oppenheimer, as well as with Alice Gray, Fred Rohm and Samuel Randlett in the United States; Robert Harbin and Iris Walker in England; Akira Yoshizawa in Japan. A profile of her, with picture, was published in the Origamian. Montoya and Yoshizawa works were featured in the 1959 paperfolding exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.

In the mid-1960s, the active Spanish paperfolder Francisco del Rio attempted, unsuccessfully, to draw Ligia Montoya into the center of organized paperfolding culture. She reportedly wished only to keep house for her close family, consisting of her mother, sister, brother-in-law and their three children—with time for paper-folding and correspondence. It appears that a serious accident in the early 1960s, followed by her mother’s death in 1966, added to Ligia Montoya’s declining health, spelt her end a year later, but not before she had given paperfolding classes to teachers at an art school, and made careful drawings and folded duplicates of many of her voluminous productions, so that her life’s work might survive her. To this date, however, her autograph models have not been assembled and only one serious study of her work, difficult to obtain, has been published, in Spanish.[6] David Lister observes: “For the grace and simple beauty of her creations and also her folding, no other paperfolder has been admired more than Ligia Montoya. Yet she herself remains an enigmatic person. She corresponded generously with many other folders throughout the world, yet she surrounded her private life with a barrier of modesty that none could penetrate.”

Ligia Montoya’s own designs are, in subject-matter, drawn from close observation of nature: notably birds, flowers and insects typical of Argentina. Her models are exact, fine and lively, expressing the shapes and creases of her thin, crisp and strong, white airmail paper (always) in the living forms it represents. Her origami Nativity crèche scene is an outstanding example. Ligia Montoya was long the only Spanish-speaking member (honorary) of the Origami Center. Robert Harbin’s extended section on Montoya in his 1971 Secrets of Origami is the main source for her designs. Harbin, who there called her “the foremost woman paper-folder today”, continued: “Her creations, which are innumerable, range from simple figures of birds and flowers to fantastically difficult insects. Her work is sensitive and ingenious, and her generosity in passing on her secrets to others is widely known. My great regret is that nobody will ever be able to set down on paper, or put into diagram form, the whole of her work.”

Additional research is required to establish biographical facts for Ligia Montoya, to distinguish her designs, to better comprehend her aesthetic and her influence in the development of the modern art form both in Latin America and in international paperfolding culture of today. Hers seems to have been a public life of fine paper, folded or written upon. Over fifty years on, concerted work is necessary to collect her voluminous correspondence and, notably, the many delicate autograph works she scattered worldwide into the hands of others.

Lee Sing-man

Lee Sing-man (born 1944), commonly known as “Uncle Man”, is a paper-tearing artist in Hong Kong.

He was once a volunteer in Kowloon Walled City Park, creating his works there, before being invited to demonstrate in Tsim Sha Tsui and became known.

Early life and education

Lee Sing-man was born in 1944 in Guangdong, China. He had spent his primary school there. At a young age, he was very naughty and he was not focusing in school. In order to get into secondary schools, however, he had to pass an exam, making it a hindrance to him. Nevertheless, he persevered and passed the exam on the sixth attempt. When he was around fourteen years old in 1958, he moved to Hong Kong and continued his studies. Right after graduating from a secondary school, he studied business administration for a year and moved to Chinese literature. Eventually, he ended his undergraduate studies because his family objected to it, and he began to work.

At first, he worked at his cousin’s watch company. He, then, worked as a quality control checker in a garment factory, followed by a dept collector in a stationery wholesale company, and a delivery courier later on. It was during this time that he started doing paper-tearing. According to him, working as a local delivery courier was toilsome, but delighting. He usually gave out his paper-tearing artwork to the companies while delivering goods to them. Of course, he was very pleased to see the companies decorating their offices with his creations.

Soon, he became famous for paper-tearing. Consequently, he resigned the job of delivery courier due to increasing paper-tearing lessons, performances and voluntary work, and he started to concentrate on promoting paper-tearing art.

1983- 1999: Paper-tearing

During the Lunar New Year’s Eve in 1983, Uncle Man created his first paper-tearing work. It was composed of two Chinese characters “Dai Kat”, which means an expectation of a great fortune. Remarkably, he made it out of boredom with no one teaching him. Although the art work was appreciated by his relatives, he did not have great affections towards paper-tearing at that moment. It was only after he created his second paper-tearing work during his work as a delivery man that he started to practice his paper-tearing skill. His second work was interpreted as “A million gold pieces”. Afterwards, he started giving his artwork to his friends as gifts.

Uncle Man tears paper according to the order of strokes of the word. He practices by adding symmetrical features to words, figures and even three-dimensional words. In fact, in order to promote paper-tearing skills, he made a lot of effort to decrease steps and have fun at the same time, so that even a two-year-old child can both learn and enjoy making them. In addition, he usually uses recycled paper for his art work in the hopes of protecting the environment and making paper-tearing popularized. For instance, he teaches children to use table mats of fast food shops to make paper-tearing works; therefore, children can make an art-work without wasting paper.

2000-present: Popularity

In 2000, Uncle Man moved to Kowloon city after his retirement. He found out that the Kowloon Walled City Park is a nice place for him to perform the paper craft art since there are a lot of tourists.

Later on, the staff in the park encouraged him to apply for a stall demonstration in Tsim Sha Tsui, which was organized by the Hong Kong Cultural Centre. The application was successful and he eventually started working there. On his first day of the demonstration, he displayed his first masterpiece. It was composed of four Chinese characters “無言感激”, representing his speechless gratefulness to the staff of the park due to their unlimited support, as well as the opportunity to promote the paper-tearing art.

Consequently, his art work has attracted more and more public attention; more people and media came to find him and learn more about his work. Others also conducted interviews with him and invited him for performances. He already managed to perform and demonstrate paper craft art in Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong Cultural Center, Avenue of Stars, Hong Kong, and Star Ferry, as well as in various restaurants, schools, hospitals and community centers.

Personal life
He was once married and had a daughter, but they got divorced and he never saw them after.

In 2000, he had devoted his life to being a volunteer in Kowloon Walled City Park. Besides introducing paper-tearing art in the place, he also wants to promote the park by introducing the history of the park to tourists, entertaining people and himself by piping, and helping the tourists to take photos in the park.

Achievements
The following are his accomplishements as a paper-tearing artist:

Lee Sing-man (Uncle Man) was able to popularize the art of paper-tearing and Chinese culture among schools, community centers and other regions.
He was also able to demonstrate paper-tearing in front of the presidents and the first ladies of Romania and Latvia respectively.
He had exhibitions of paper-tearing works in Yuen Long between January 28, 2008 and February 24, 2008, and between January 18, 2012 and February 6, 2012 in Wan Chai.
He had shared in workshops on October 13, 2012 in Jockey Club Inclusive Arts Program 2011-12 Annual Exhibition and Community Showcase.
Besides promoting his paper-works, he was also able to introduce the history facts of the Kowloon Walled City among different tourists every day.

Marc Kirschenbaum

Marc Kirschenbaum (born 1969) is an American origami artist, designer, and board member of OrigamiUSA. He is known for creation of complex origami models, including various instrumentalists, insects, and erotic origami works, called “pornigami”. He has three books on how to do some of the origami pieces that he has made. The books are titled Paper in Harmony,Origami Bugs and Erotic Origami.

Erotic Origami contains instructions on how to create 12 different pieces.

Marc Kirschenbaum was born in New York in 1969. He began folding paper when he was 3 and started designing his own origami models during childhood. Kirschenbaum lives in New York City and works as an IT industry recruiter.

Publications

Paper in Harmony (2000)
Origami Bugs (2007)
Erotic Origami (2008)

Robert Lang

Robert J. Lang (born May 4, 1961) is an American physicist who is also one of the foremost origami artists and theorists in the world. He is known for his complex and elegant designs, most notably of insects and animals. He has studied the mathematics of origami and used computers to study the theories behind origami. He has made great advances in making real-world applications of origami to engineering problems.

Lang was born in Dayton, Ohio, and grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. Lang attended California Institute of Technology for his undergraduate work in electrical engineering, where he met his wife-to-be, Diane. He earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Stanford in 1983, and returned to Caltech to pursue a Ph.D. in Applied Physics with a dissertation titled “Semiconductor Lasers: New Geometries and Spectral Properties.”

Lang began work for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1988. Lang also worked as a research scientist for Spectra Diode Labs of San Jose, California, and then at JDS Uniphase, also of San Jose.

Lang has authored or co-authored over 80 publications on semiconductor lasers, optics, and integrated optoelectronics, and holds 46 patents in these fields.

In 2001, Lang left the engineering field to being a full-time origami artist and consultant. However, he still maintains ties to his physics background: he was the editor-in-chief of the IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics from 2007 to 2010, and has done part-time laser consulting for Cypress Semiconductor, among others.

Lang currently resides in Alamo, California.

Lang was introduced to origami at the age of six by a teacher who had exhausted other methods of keeping him entertained in the classroom. By his early teens, he was designing original origami patterns. Lang used origami as an escape from the pressures of undergraduate studies. While studying at Caltech, Lang came into contact with other origami masters such as Michael LaFosse, John Montroll, Joseph Wu, and Paul Jackson through the Origami Center of America, now known as OrigamiUSA.

While in Germany for postdoctoral work, Lang and his wife were enamored of Black Forest cuckoo clocks, and he became a sensation in the origami world when he successfully folded one after three months of design and six hours of actual folding.

Lang takes full advantage of modern technology in his origami, including using a laser cutter to help score paper for complex folds.

Lang is recognized as one of the leading theorists of the mathematics of origami. He has developed ways to algorithmetize the design process for origami, and is the author of the proof of the completeness of the Huzita–Hatori axioms.

Lang specializes in finding real-world applications for the various theories of origami he has developed. These included designing folding patterns for a German airbag manufacturer.[3] He has worked with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, where a team is developing a powerful space telescope, with a 100 m (328 ft) lens in the form of a thin membrane. Lang was engaged by the team to develop a way to fit the tremendous lens, known as the Eyeglass, into a small rocket in such a way that the lens can be unfolded in space and will not suffer from any permanent marks or creases. Lang is the author or co-author of eight books and many articles on origami. Lang also designed the Google Doodle for Akira Yoshizawa’s 101st birthday, which was used by Google on March 14, 2012.

In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. In addition, Lang is recognized as a Hinge Visible Expert, as an engineer who has attained high visibility and expertise.

The Complete Book of Origami; Dover Publications, 1988
Origami Zoo (with Stephen Weiss ); St. Martin’s Press, 1989
Origami Sea Life (with John Montroll); Dover Publications, 1990
Origami Animals; Crescent, 1992; out of print
Origami Insects and their Kin; Dover Publications, 1995
Origami in Action; St. Martin’s Press, 1996
Origami Insects II; Gallery Origami House, 2003
Robert J. Lang (2003). Origami Design Secrets: Mathematical Methods for an Ancient Art. A K Peters. ISBN 1-56881-194-2

Toshikazu Kawasaki

Toshikazu Kawasaki is known as “The Father of Origami Rose” was born on 26th November 26 1955 in Kurume, Fukuoka. Kawasaki teaches Mathematics at Sasebo Technical Junior College and is responsible for some interesting mathematical theories. He is also an origami theorist renowned for creating geometrical origami models. He is famed for his fourfold symmetry “roses” that are based on a twisting maneuver allowing petals to curl centrally.

He develop the technique of iso-area folding, which allows the folder to end up with each side of the paper displayed in equal amounts. It consists of building a mirror-symmetrical crease pattern and then collapsing it to find a finished form, usually a geometric shape such as a cube. He also discovered and proved that with any given flat point in an origami model, the sum of alternating angles is always equal to 180 degrees, a result now known as Kawasaki’s theorem.

Kunihiko Kasahara

Kunihiko Kasahara (Kasahara Kunihiko?) (born 1941) is a Japanese origami master. He has made more than a hundred origami models, from simple lion masks to complex modular origami, such as a small stellated dodecahedron. He does not specialize in what is known as “super complex origami”, but rather he likes making simple, elegant animals, and modular designs such as polyhedra, as well as exploring the mathematics and geometry of origami. A book expressing both approaches is Origami for the Connoisseur (Kasahara and Takahama), which gathers modern innovations in polyhedral construction, featuring moderately difficult but accessible methods for producing the Platonic solids from single sheets, and much more.

Kasahara is perhaps origami’s most enthusiastic designer and collector of origami models that are variations on a cube, a number of which appear in Vol. 2 of a 2005 three volume work (presently available only in Japanese). Vol. 3 of the same work is devoted to another Kasahara interest: reverse engineering and diagramming classic Japanese origami models pictured in early works, such as zenbazuru (thousand origami cranes from the Hiden Senbazuru Orikata of 1797, one of the earliest known origami books), the origami art of folding multiple connected cranes out of a single sheet of paper.

He has written many books, of which Origami Omnibus is his best known book available in English, and contains many of his models as well as outstanding classics by others.

Bibliography

Creative Origami, Japan Publications, 1967. ISBN 0-87040-411-3
Origami Made Easy, Japan Publications, 1973. ISBN 0-87040-253-6
Origami Omnibus: Paper Folding for Everybody, Japan Publication, 1988. ISBN 4-8170-9001-4
Origami for the Connoisseur (with Toshie Takahama), Japan Publications, 1998. ISBN 4-8170-9002-2
Amazing Origami, Sterling, 2002. ISBN 0-8069-5821-9
Extreme Origami, Sterling, 2003. ISBN 1-4027-0602-2
The Art and Wonder of Origami Quarry Book, 2005. ISBN 1-59253-213-6
おりがみ新発見〈1〉半開折り・回転折り・非対称の形 日貿出版社 (Spirals & asymmetric shapes) 2005. ISBN 4-8170-8085-X
おりがみ新発見〈2〉キューブの世界 (単行本) (Cubes) 2005. ISBN 4-8170-8086-8
おりがみ新発見〈3〉古典から最新作まで300年の絵巻 (300 year old Classics, senbazuru) 2005. ISBN 4-8170-8087-6

Kade Chan

Chan Pak Hei, Kade(born 1993, in Hong Kong) also known as Kade Chan, professional origami artist who specializes in designing origami monster characters, he is also an industrial/graphic designer.

Origami Designs
Year    Model
2007    Man With Heart
2007    Dynastes Hercules
2008    Fiery Dragon ver.1
2008    Scorpion
2008    Cyclops
2008    Alien Warrior
2009    Jigsaw Mask
2009    Harry Potter – Golden Snitch
2009    Abstract landscape – Egypt
2009    Dragon Kaiser
2009    TV Buddy
2009    Face Hugger
2010    Cat in Ancient Egypt
2010    Sphinx
2010    Anubis (Egyptian God of Death)
2010    Werewolf
2010    Bat Triceratops
2010    Devil Cobra
2011    Roman soldier head statue
2011    Peacock
2011    The Disciple
2011    Gargoyle
2011    Megatron
2011    Sparrow
2011    Corn
2011    Steve Jobs head and Apple icon
2012    Eagle 2012
2012    Dollar Bill Heart Ring
2012    Back Pain
2012    Immortal Crane
2012    Rose of Kade Chan
2012    Rilakkuma Origami
2012    Minotaur
2012    Gryphon
2012    Jellyfish Style Origami Lampshade
2012    The Thunderbird
2012    Origami Rose of Janessa
2012    Predator
2013    Walrus
2013    Capricorn
2013    Dollar Bill Origami Pig
2013    Minotaur 2.0
2013    Dragon Fighter
2013    T-REX
2013    Eagle 2013
2013    Fiery Dragon ver.2
2014    The Saiyan
2014    Gryphon Zero
2014    Koi
2014    Godzilla
2014    Requiem Alien Warrior

Satoshi Kamiya

Satoshi Kamiya (Kamiya Satoshi, born June 6, 1981 in Nagoya, Japan) is among the most advanced origami masters in the world. He began the art at age two, and began seriously designing more advanced models in 1995, and has since made hundreds of origami models. Perhaps his most famous design is Ryujin 3.5, an elaborate dragon covered with scales and having feelers, claws, and horns. The work can take up to one month to fold properly. Satoshi has drawn inspiration for his designs from Manga, nature, and both eastern and western mythologies.

Many of Satoshi’s origami designs are exceptionally complex; the dragons require around 275 steps each and need to be made from at least 20″ squares of thin paper or foil. The dragon model (ryu-zin) is unique, however, in that the crease pattern is asymmetrical yet produces a symmetrical model. Kamiya has written three books, the most famous of which, Works of Satoshi Kamiya, 1995-2003 includes diagrams of nineteen models of intermediate through complex difficulty. Kamiya’s third book released in 2012 includes 16 models and is a follow-up to his debut. Most of these were previously published in convention books, magazines or taught in class. It also includes new, previously unpublished diagrams for the famous feathered, long-tailed phoenix.

Works of Satoshi Kamiya, 1995-2003 Origami House, 2005. ISBN 0-00-004194-4

World of Super-Complex Origami Soshimu, 2010. ISBN 978-4-88337-710-7 (in cooperation with other origamists, like Komatsu Hideo and Takashi Hojyo)

Works of Satoshi Kamiya 2, 2002-2009 Origami House, 2012 (out November 15)

Eric Joisel

Éric Joisel (Montmorency, November 15, 1956 – Argenteuil, October 10, 2010) was a French origami artist who specialized in the wet-folding method, creating figurative art sculptures using sheets of paper and water, without the use of any adhesive or scissors.

oisel was born on November 15, 1956, in Montmorency, Val-d’Oise, a commune in the northern suburbs of Paris, and focused his education on history and law before turning to art. His initial experiences in the art world were in sculpting, using the traditional forms of clay and stone.

He first discovered in the 1980s the unique forms created with paper by Akira Yoshizawa, the Japanese grandmaster of origami who had created more than 50,000 models, developing the wet-folding method that allowed for the creation of three-dimensional rounded sculptures. Joisel was taken by the way the Yoshizawa’s works blended classical origami methods and standard forms of sculpture in order to make expressive figures out of wet paper, without making any cuts or using any glue.

Joisel shifted to working with paper in the 1990s, devoting the remainder of his career to creating origami art using his own self-taught variation of the wet-folding techniques that Yoshizawa had developed and refined. He devoted his life to origami after losing his job as the manager of a printing company. Living in a small home, he devoted hours focusing on the meticulous design and detail of each piece of origami. He could spend as much as years working out the plans for one of his original origami pieces, with a single piece created over a period of days or weeks, involving hundreds of precisely planned and executed folds to sheets of paper that could measure to as much as 15 feet (4.6 m) by 25 feet (7.6 m) to create figures that ranged from the size of one’s hand to life size, while many were no more than 12 inches (30 cm) high. Though his work was displayed at the Musée du Louvre and collectors from around the world paid as much as thousands of dollars for some of his origami sculptures, the tremendous amount of time that he devoted to each work meant that he didn’t earn much income. Themed pieces that he handcrafted included figures from commedia dell’arte and foot-high sculptures of musicians each holding a finely detailed musical instrument.

Joisel published many of the design plans for his figures, providing a look into the extraordinary level of detail and precision that “renders his art simultaneously approachable and unattainable”. In his obituary, The New York Times included instructions on how to duplicate one of Joisel’s figures of a rat, though it noted that “no lay person should even contemplate the hedgehog”.

Joisel was featured in the documentary Between the Folds, a 2009 film by Vanessa Gould about the modern world of origami artists.

A resident of Sannois, Joisel died at the age of 53 on October 10, 2010, in Argenteuil due to lung cancer. He had never married and had no children, and was survived by four siblings.

Humiaki Huzita

Humiaki Huzita (Fujita Fumiaki, 1924 – 26 March 2005) was a Japanese-Italian mathematician and origami artist. He was born in Japan, emigrating to Italy to study nuclear physics at the University of Padua. He is best known for formulating the first six Huzita–Hatori axioms, which described the mathematics of paper folding to solve geometric construction problems.

John Montroll

John Montroll is an American master origami artist and prolific author, well known by paper-folding enthusiasts throughout the world.

John Montroll was born in Washington, D.C. He is the son of Elliott Waters Montroll, an American scientist and mathematician.

Montroll mastered his first origami book, Honda’s How to make Origami, at the age of six, the same age he began creating his own origami animals. He became a member of the Origami Center of America at age twelve. He attended his first origami convention at age 14. Montroll now teaches mathematics at St. Anselm’s Abbey School in Washington, D.C, teaching small groups of advanced math students, AB and BC Calculus, as well as a Geometry course. He even teaches an Origami class. One of John Montroll’s hobbies is whistling . He can whistle in 5 octaves, and has shown this talent at 2 Whistling conventions in Louisburg, North Carolina.

John Montroll pioneered modern origami with the publication of his first book, Origami for the Enthusiast; Dover Publications, 1979, which was the first origami book where each model is folded from single square sheet and no cuts.[citation needed] In the same book he also introduced the origami term “double rabbit ear fold”.

Publications

Origami for the Enthusiast; Dover Publications, 1979
Animal Origami for the Enthusiast; Dover Publications, 1985
Origami American Style; Zenagraf, 1990
Origami Sculptures (with Andrew Montroll); Antroll Pub. Co., 1990
Origami Sea Life (with Robert J. Lang); Dover Publications, 1990
Prehistoric Origami; Dover Publications, 1990
African Animals in Origami; Dover Publications, 1991
Easy Origami; Dover Publications, 1992
Origami Inside-Out; Dover Publications, 1993
Birds in Origami; Dover Publications, 1995
North American Animals in Origami; Dover Publications, 1995
Favorite Animals in Origami; Dover Publications, 1996
Mythological Creatures and the Chinese Zodiac in Origami; Dover Publications, 1996
Teach Yourself Origami; Dover Publications, 1998
Bringing Origami to Life; Dover Publications, 1999
Dollar Bill Animals in Origami; Dover Publications, 2000
Bugs and Birds in Origami; Dover Publications, 2001
A Plethora of Origami Polyhedra; Dover Publications, 2002
Dollar Bill Origami; Dover Publications, 2003
A Constellation of Origami Polyhedra; Dover Publications, 2004
Origami: Birds And Insects; Dover Publications, 2004
Origami: Wild Animals; Dover Publications, 2004
Easy Christmas Origami; Dover Publications, 2006
Christmas Origami; Dover Publications, 2006
Storytime Origami; Dover Publications, 2009
Origami Polyhedra Design; AK Peters, 2009
eZ Origami”; Kindle Edition by Antroll Publishing Company (April 17, 2010)
eZ Origami”;Smashwords Edition by eOrigami Publishing (May 8, 2010)
Easy Dollar Bill Origami; Dover Publications (May 20, 2010)
Dinosaur Origami; Dover Publications (June 9, 2010)
Origami Jungle Birds”; Kindle Edition by Antroll Publishing Company; 1 edition (June 16, 2010)
Origami Under The Sea (with Robert J. Lang); Dover Publications (July 15, 2010)

External links
http://www.johnmontroll.com
Montroll books on Amazon.com

Peter Engel

Peter Engel, an origami artist, was born in 1959 in America. Also an origami theorist, science writer, graphic designer, and architect, he studied “The History and Philosophy of Science”  at Harvard University, which is where he started studying origami under the design scientist Arthur Loeb.
“My time studying with Arthur Loeb deepened my understanding of the design principles that underlie the forms of nature, mathematics, and art”.

In 1987 he graduated from Columbia University with a master’s degree in architecture.

He has a firm in Berkeley, California that specializes in residences, schools, affordable housing, non-profit work, and museum exhibits. His designs are simple and clear structures that emphasize movement, light, and the efficient use of space. He believes that origami and architecture are similar in that they both require a balance between aesthetic appeal and practical concerns.

Engel has traveled extensively in Asia while working in the fields of architecture and international development, particularly in Sri Lanka and India. In an interview with Origami USA, he noted, “India was a very powerful experience for me, especially in meeting so many Indian craftspeople. These people didn’t intellectualize about whether theirs was an art or a craft, they just did it. Their work was symbolically rich and always deeply connected to their culture and the aesthetics of their own area. Often each village does a different craft with different designs and motifs, and then they trade with each other. While I was in India, I realized that a lot of origami models I had done had no connection to my own culture or personal experience. The subjects of my models were fascinating to me but didn’t have a deep connection to me except through my love of form. I became interested in doing things that have a greater emotional connection. So making the mobile for my baby had great importance to me.”

The Art of Origami

Among paper folding fans, Peter Engel is best noted for his expertise in analyzing the relationship between mathematics and origami. But, he is quick to note that origami should still be seen as an art form. He compares origami to music. Even though music has quantifiable notes that can be mathematically analyzed, it is an art form because the structure of a song is packed with emotion. In Engel’s eyes, the folds of an origami model are like the notes of a song.

He has exhibited his origami artwork and sculpture at the Gettysburg College Art Museum in Pennsylvania, the Asian Art Museum and the de Young Museum in San Francisco, the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University, the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and Seian University of Art and Design in Otsu, Japan.

He is a licensed architect and lives in Oakland, California, with his wife and two children.

Bibliography

• Folding the Universe (later re-released in 1994 as Origami from Angelfish to Zen) (1989)
  Features instructions for 24 projects, including a butterfly, hummingbird, giraffe, and kangaroo.
  It is a highly unusual origami book in that besides the usual folding instructions, a significant portion was devoted to essays on the history of the craft as well as the theory. By exploring the relationship between art and science, and between creation, invention, and discovery, Engel provides unusual insights on the craft medium which has strict inherent constraints in favouring simple, geometric patterns and yet holds enough creative possibility within it to capture an unexpected range of complex forms. His models range from a unique coiled rattlesnake to a charming dollar bill bow tie to a delicate, detailed butterfly. The book also contains an interview with the legendary Japanese origami artist Akira Yoshizawa.
• 10-Fold Origami: Fabulous Paperfolds You Can Make in Just 10 Steps! (2009)Features a diverse array of origami models, all of which have 10 numbered steps required for completion. Some of the featured projects include an ivy leaf, an asymmetric snake, a wedding ring, and a hatching chick. It is generally considered an beginner to intermediate skill level book
• Origami Odyssey: A Journey to the Edge of Paperfolding (2011)Features 21 amazing origami projects and a DVD containing video explanations and instructions. This book received many positive reviews from origami enthusiasts around the world. Tom Rockwell, Director of Exhibits at The Exploratorium in San Francisco, said, “Peter Engel’s origami designs sing for themselves: creations of elegance, whimsy, and surprise. Origami Odyssey is an extraordinary celebration of the shared territory where art, nature, geometry, and imagination come together and play.”

Action Origami

Origami can move in clever ways. Action Origami includes origami that flies, requires inflation to complete, or, when complete, uses the kinetic energy of a person’s hands, applied at a certain region on the model, to move another flap or limb. Some argue that, strictly speaking, only the latter is really ‘recognized’ as Action Origami.

Action Origami first appeared with the traditional Japanese flapping bird. One example is Robert Lang’s instrumentalists; when the figures’ heads are pulled away from their bodies, their hands will move, resembling the playing of music.

Yoshizawa-Randlett system

Read about the Yoshizawa-Randlett system

The Yoshizawa-Randlett system is a diagramming system used to describe the folds of origami models. Many origami books begin with a description of basic origami techniques which are used to construct the models. There are also a number of standard bases which are commonly used as a first step in construction. Models are typically classified as requiring low, intermediate or high skill depending on the complexity of the techniques involved in the construction.

The concept of diagramming originated in the 1797 book ‘Senbazuru Orikata’, the first origami book ever published. The diagrams in this book were very unclear, and often only showed the end result of the folding process, leaving the folder unsure how the model was created.

Later books began to devise a system of showing precisely how a model was folded. These ranged from an unwieldy set of symbols to a photograph or sketch of each step attempting to show the motion of a fold. None of these systems were sufficient to diagram all models, and so none were widely adopted.

In the 1950s and ’60s, Akira Yoshizawa proposed a system of diagramming. He introduced its diagramming notation in his first published monograph,Atarashi Origami Geijutsu (New Origami Art) in 1954. He employed dotted and dashed lines to represent mountain and valley folds, and a few other symbols such as the ‘inflate’ and ’round’ symbols. This system caught the attention of Samuel Randlett and Robert Harbin, who added a few symbols such as ‘rotate’ and ‘zoom in’, and then adopted it as the standard. The Yoshizawa-Randlett system was first described in Samuel Randlett’s Art of Origami in 1961. It was then accepted as the default throughout the international origami community, and is still in general use today.

Akira Yoshizawa

Akira Yoshizawa (14 March 1911 to 14 March 2005)

A Japanese origamist, considered to be the grandmaster of origami. In 1989, he estimated he had created more than 50,000 models, but only a few hundred of his designs are available in the form of diagrams in his 18 books. Throughout his career as an origamist he took on the role of an international cultural ambassador for Japan. He was awared one of the highest honors in Japan, the Order of the Rising, by Emperor Hirohito in 1983.

Born on 14 March 1911, in Kaminokawa, Japan, to the family of a dairy farmer. When he was a child, he took pleasure in teaching himself origami. He moved into a factory job in Tokyo when he was 13 years old. His passion for origami was rekindled in his early 20s, when he was promoted from factory worker to technical draftsman. His new job was to teach junior employees geometry. Yoshizawa used the traditional art of origami to understand and communicate geometrical problems. In 1937 he left factory work to pursue origami full-time. During the next 20 years, he lived in total poverty, earning his living by door-to-door selling of tsukudani (a Japanese preserved condiment that is usually made of seaweed).

During World War II, Akira Yoshizawa served in the army medical corps in Hong Kong. He made origami models to cheer up the sick patients, but eventually fell ill himself and was sent back to Japan.

His origami work was creative enough to be included in the 1944 book Origami Shuko, by Isao Honda. However, it was his work for a 1952 issue of the magazine Asahi Graph that launched his career, which included the 12 zodiac signs commissioned by a magazine.

In 1954 his first monograph, Atarashii Origami Geijutsu (New Origami Art) was published. In this work he established the Yoshizawa-Randlett system of notation for origami folds (a system of symbols, arrows and diagrams), which has become the standard for most paperfolders. The publishing of this book helped Yoshizawa out of his poverty. It was followed closely by his founding of the International Origami Centre in Tokyo in 1954, when he was 43.

His first overseas exhibition was organised in 1955 by Gershon Legman, a leading player in the early years of the origami movement. The exhibition was held at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Felix Tikotin, a Dutch dealer, acted as a liaison. Yoshizawa lent many of his own origami models to other exhibitions around the world. He would never sell his origami figures, but rather gave them away as gifts to people, and let other groups and organizations borrow them for exhibiting.

His second wife, Kiyo Yoshizawa, served as his manager and taught origami to the other patients until his death on his 94th birthday. He died of pneumonia, which shocked a lot of people, as it is not common in Japan.

Origins of Origami

Read about the origins of origami

AD 105 is often cited as the year in which papermaking was invented. In that year, historical records show that the invention of paper was reported to the Chinese Emperor by Ts’ai Lun, an official of the Imperial Court. Recent archaeological investigations, however, place the actual invention of papermaking some 200 years earlier. Ancient paper pieces from the Xuanquanzhi ruins of Dunhuang in China’s northwest Gansu province apparently were made during the period of Emperor Wu who reigned between 140 BC and 86 BC. Whether or not Ts’ai Lun was the actual inventor of paper, he deserves the place of honor he has been given in Chinese history for his role in developing a material that revolutionized his country.

The beginings of origami soon followed.

The Japanese word “Origami” itself is a compound of two smaller Japanese words: “oru”, meaning to fold, and “kami”, meaning paper. Until recently, all forms of paper folding were not grouped under the word origami, namely “tsutsumi”, a kind of wrapper used for formal occasions. Before that, paperfolding for play was known by a variety of names, including “orikata”, “orisue”, “orimono”, “tatamigami” and others. Exactly why “origami” became the common name is not known; it has been suggested that the word was adopted in the kindergartens because the written characters were easier for young children to write. Another theory is that the word “origami” was a direct translation of the German word “Papierfalten”, brought into Japan with the Kindergarten Movement around 1880.

Japanese origami began sometime after Buddhist monks carried paper to Japan during the 6th century. The first Japanese origami is dated from this period and was used for religious ceremonial purposes only, due to the high price of paper.

A reference in a poem by Ihara Saikaku from 1680, which describes the origami butterflies used during Shinto weddings to represent the bride and groom, indicates that origami had become a significant aspect of Japanese ceremony by the Heian period (794–1185). Samurai warriors are known to have exchanged gifts adorned with noshi, a sort of good luck token made of folded strips of paper.

In 1797 the first known origami book was published in Japan: Senbazuru orikata. There are several origami stories in Japanese culture, such as a story of Abe no Seimei making a paper bird and turning it into a real one.

The earliest evidence of paperfolding in Europe is a picture of a small paper boat in Tractatus de sphaera mundi from 1490. There is also evidence of a cut and folded paper box from 1440. It is possible that paperfolding in the west originated with the Moors much earlier; however, it is not known if it was independently discovered or knowledge of origami came along the silk route.

The modern growth of interest in origami dates to the design in 1954 by Akira Yoshizawa of a notation to indicate how to fold origami models. The Yoshizawa-Randlett system is now used internationally. Today the popularity of origami has given rise to origami societies such as the British Origami Society and OrigamiUSA. The first known origami social group was founded in Zaragoza, Spain, during the 1940s.

The Chinese word for paperfolding is “Zhe Zhi”, and some Chinese contend that origami is a historical derivative of Chinese paperfolding.