Laughing Mouth Vessel
Vessel
1985 (made)
1985 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
Yanagihara Mutsuo's (b.1934) work is striking for its blend of dynamism, colour and wit. A leading figure among Kyoto artists, Yanagihara has taught at Osaka University of Arts since 1968. Yanagihara's application of brightly coloured abstract motifs to vessel forms with anatomical, sometime sexually explicit features - a combination with which he first experimented in the late 1960s and early 1970s - has been a characteristic of his work for the past fifteen years. As in the case of Morino Taimei, a close friend and exact contemporary at Kyoto City University of Arts in the late 1950s, Yanagihara has been considerably influenced by the experiences he gained during two periods of teaching in the United States in 1966-8 and 1972-4. His use of gold and silver - a wry comment, he has explained, on the decaying values of contemporary society and the corruption of Japan's political system - echoes the extravagant style of certain North American artists.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Titles |
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| Materials and techniques | Stoneware, hand-built, with gold lustre over blue and yellow glazes |
| Brief description | 'Laughing Mouth' Vessel, stoneware, hand-built, with gold lustre over blue and yellow glazes, Kyoto, Japan, 1985 |
| Physical description | 'Laughing Mouth' Vessel of stoneware, hand-built, with gold lustre over blue and yellow glazes. With non-accessioned cardboard box. |
| Dimensions |
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| Style | |
| Gallery label | VESSEL: LAUGHING MOUTH
Made by Mutsuo Yanagihara (Japanese, born 1934),
Japan, 1980
Stoneware decorated with gold over blue and yellow glazes
FE.33-1989
A leading Kyoto-based potter, Yanagihara has taught ceramics at Osaka University since 1968. He is well known outside Japan, especially in the United States, where he lived and taught in 1966-8 and 1972-4. His work, an intriguing combination of technical virtuosity and funky West Coast humour, is always amusing and often shocking. |
| Object history | Purchased from the maker |
| Summary | Yanagihara Mutsuo's (b.1934) work is striking for its blend of dynamism, colour and wit. A leading figure among Kyoto artists, Yanagihara has taught at Osaka University of Arts since 1968. Yanagihara's application of brightly coloured abstract motifs to vessel forms with anatomical, sometime sexually explicit features - a combination with which he first experimented in the late 1960s and early 1970s - has been a characteristic of his work for the past fifteen years. As in the case of Morino Taimei, a close friend and exact contemporary at Kyoto City University of Arts in the late 1950s, Yanagihara has been considerably influenced by the experiences he gained during two periods of teaching in the United States in 1966-8 and 1972-4. His use of gold and silver - a wry comment, he has explained, on the decaying values of contemporary society and the corruption of Japan's political system - echoes the extravagant style of certain North American artists. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | FE.33-1989 |
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| Record created | February 12, 2000 |
| Record URL |
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