Biography
Yoshirō Muraki was a Japanese production designer, art director and costume designer. He joined Toho studio in the mid-1940s and began working with director Akira Kurosawa as an assistant art director on Drunken Angel (1948). He served as art director or production designer on all of Kurosawa’s subsequent films from Record of a Living Being (1955) onwards, with the exception of Dersu Uzala (1975).
Muraki received Academy Award nominations for Best Art Direction for Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), Kagemusha (1980) and Ran (1985), and for Best Costume Design for Yojimbo (1961). He also designed costumes for Sanjuro (1962). He shared an Oscar nomination for Ran with his wife, Shinobu Muraki, who frequently collaborated with him. Muraki won five Japanese Academy Awards for art direction and received the Medal with Purple Ribbon in 1994 and the Order of the Rising Sun, Fourth Class, in 1999.
