Kamoda's untimely death from leukaemia in 1983 deprived Japan of one of its most talented artists of recent decades. During a remarkable career he explored in a continually evolving series of experiments the relationship between sculptural form and surface decoration. This vase belongs to a seminal period between his abandonment of the making of works inspired by early Japanese stonewares of the Nara (710-794) and Heian (794-1185) periods and his adoption, in the early 1970s, of polychrome decoration. It is distinguished by its combination of a strongly angular shape and sensitively modulated surface qualities, created by overlaying a faint resist pattern on a roughly textured unglazed body.