Image of Gallery in South Kensington
Not currently on display at the V&A
On short term loan out for exhibition

Dish

1972 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Hamada Shoji (1894-1978) was one of the leading potters of the Japanese Mingei (Folk Craft) movement. He was closely associated both with Yanagi Soetsu (1889-1961), the philosopher-critic on whose theories the movement was founded, and the pioneer English studio potter Bernard Leach (1887-1979), whom he helped establish the Leach Pottery in St Ives, Cornwall, during the early 1920s.

The Mingei movement developed in early twentieth-century Japan as a social and aesthetic crusade. It held ideas in common with the English Arts and Crafts theorists John Ruskin and William Morris about the value of hand-work and the negative effects of industrialisation and mass production. It actively sought to save and revive Japanese folk-craft traditions, which were becoming sidelined due to the forces of modernisation and urbanisation, and was part of a broader cultural movment in which Japan sought to articulate and assert a sense of national identity in the face of burgeoning westernisation.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Stoneware, press-moulded, painted and glazed
Brief description
Square dish, stoneware with brown glaze and painted and trailed designs in green and brown, made by Hamada Shoji, Japan (Mashiko), 1972.
Physical description
A flat-based square dish with sides spreading part-way and then angled more acutely to the rim; heavily potted, and standing on a low, flattened square foot. Press-moulded.

Greyish stoneware, the sides covered in and outside with a thick and lustrous rust-brown glaze and having painted or trailed round the inside four bold strokes of copper-green, with a simple plant motif painted on the plain glaze covering the centre.

(Box: With box, inscribed inside lid; 'Persimmon glaze with green cross decoration, iron-decorated square dish; Shoji; Sho'; paper sticker on base with number '350'.)
Dimensions
  • Depth: 31.8cm
  • Height: 7.6cm
  • Width: 31.5cm
Style
Gallery label
Square dish Stoneware with brown glaze and painted and trailed designs in green and brown. By Hamada Shoji JAPANESE; 1972 Given by the potter FE.1-1973(as at 2005)
Credit line
Given by the potter
Object history
Presented to the Museum by the potter on the occasion of the Prime Minister's visit to Japan in 1972.
Production
Artist: Hamada Shoji (1894 - 1978)
Biographical reference: Laurance P. Roberts 'Dictionary of Japanese artists' (Tokyo/New York, 1976), p.38; Gisela Jahn and Anette Petersen-Brandhorst, 'Erde und Feuer' Deutsches Museum (Munich, 1984), pp.198-199
Subject depicted
Summary
Hamada Shoji (1894-1978) was one of the leading potters of the Japanese Mingei (Folk Craft) movement. He was closely associated both with Yanagi Soetsu (1889-1961), the philosopher-critic on whose theories the movement was founded, and the pioneer English studio potter Bernard Leach (1887-1979), whom he helped establish the Leach Pottery in St Ives, Cornwall, during the early 1920s.

The Mingei movement developed in early twentieth-century Japan as a social and aesthetic crusade. It held ideas in common with the English Arts and Crafts theorists John Ruskin and William Morris about the value of hand-work and the negative effects of industrialisation and mass production. It actively sought to save and revive Japanese folk-craft traditions, which were becoming sidelined due to the forces of modernisation and urbanisation, and was part of a broader cultural movment in which Japan sought to articulate and assert a sense of national identity in the face of burgeoning westernisation.
Bibliographic reference
International Exhibition of Ceramics, V & A Museum (London, 1972), no 1. 'Retrospective exhibition of Shoji Hamada', National Museum of Modern Art, (Tokyo, 1977)
Collection
Accession number
FE.1-1973

About this object record

Explore the Collections contains over a million catalogue records, and over half a million images. It is a working database that includes information compiled over the life of the museum. Some of our records may contain offensive and discriminatory language, or reflect outdated ideas, practice and analysis. We are committed to addressing these issues, and to review and update our records accordingly.

You can write to us to suggest improvements to the record.

Suggest feedback

Record createdFebruary 12, 2000
Record URL
Download as: JSON