SACRAMENTO, CA.- Beginning in January, the
Crocker Art Museum will bring to Sacramento Into the Fold: Contemporary Japanese Ceramics from the Horvitz Collection, an exhibition highlighting the technical virtuosity of more than 40 artists, including many of Japan’s greatest living ceramists.
Japan has an exceptionally long and distinguished history of ceramic-making, dating back to the Neolithic period, around 10,000 BCE. As techniques have been explored through the ages, and as other nations introduced their own cultural influences, Japan’s ceramists have honed their craft while adhering strictly to standards involving quality and creativity. Into the Fold features works produced in 20th- and 21st-century Japan, some of which are inspired by traditional themes and methods, while others break new ground as part of the avant-garde. Tensions between form and functionality, traditional and modern, national and international, are often evident across works in the exhibition and individual pieces. Groupings suggest particular elements associated with the medium’s development, including tea vessels, geometric design, and sculptural forms.
Some of Japan’s greatest ceramics artists, past and present, are represented, including pioneers Hamada Shoji (1894-1978), one of the founders of the Japanese Folk Art (Mingei) Movement, and Kitaoji Rosanjin (1883-1959), an enormously influential artist and restaurateur who created extraordinary tableware for use in his Tokyo restaurant. Other featured ceramists have been designated by the Japanese government as living national treasures for their contribution to reinventing and perpetuating Japanese ceramic traditions.
“These are not what you would consider ‘typical’ ceramics,” says the Crocker Art Museum’s adjunct curator of Asian art, Amelia Kit-Yiu Chau. “These works open our eyes to what’s possible in working in pottery and porcelain, as we have an opportunity to witness bold techniques and creations.”
Of particular note in this exhibition are works by female ceramists, many of whom have achieved international acclaim. The traditional manner of becoming a ceramic artist in Japan involved apprenticing to a master – a process traditionally not open to women. After World War II, many women instead attended universities in Japan and abroad to learn ceramic arts, resulting in the opening of the field to diverse and important contributions by women. Ono Hakuko (1915-1996) is known for mastering yuri-kinsai, a difficult decorative technique involving gold foil underglaze. Katsumata Chieko (born 1950), an artist who pursued her ceramics career while studying in the West, covers her biomorphic vessels in cloth, through which she applies layers of vivid color between repeated firings. Tokuda Yasokichi IV (born 1961) is a fourth-generation head of a traditional potter’s family. Tokuda produces richly decorated vessels of Kutani porcelain, an historic art form that has flourished in her hands. Tokuda’s works are richly decorated with arrangements and gradations of glaze colors, using a technique unique to her family and passed down by her father, its inventor.
Says Kit-Yiu Chau, “This exhibition gives us a rare opportunity to appreciate the extraordinary work of many female ceramicists who have, in turn, mentored and inspired a new generation of potters, both female and male.”
Into the Fold will be on view at the Crocker Art Museum January 22 – May 7, 2017. The exhibition was organized by the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida, with guest Japanese art curator Tomoko Nagakura.
