Vase
1967 (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.
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
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| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | Stoneware with grey-green and opaque off-white glazes |
| Brief description | Vase, stoneware with grey-green and opaque off-white glazes; made by Hamada Shoji, Japan (Mashiko), 1967 |
| Physical description | A round-bodied jar with cut sides (10 facets) and a small rim at the neck. The slightly asymmetrical body is set on a small raised rim, the underside of which is impressed with five shell firing-supports. The whole is covered with a grey-green thin glaze, running in thicker rivulets down the sides. The top of the pot, from the neck to the shoulder, has an added thick cream colouring with parts of the green-brown under-glaze exposed. Ash glaze on the stoneware body. |
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| Gallery label |
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| Production | Artist: Hamada Shoji (1894-1978) Biographical reference: L.P. Roberts, 'Dictionary of Japanese Artists' (New York/Tokyo, 1976), p.38: Gisela Jahn and Anette Petersen-Brandhorst, 'Erde und Feuer', Deutsches Museum (Munich, 1984), pp.198 - 199 Mashiko, Tochigi-ken, JAPAN |
| 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 | 'Retrospective Exhibition of Shoji Hamada', National Museum of Modern Art (Tokyo, 1977) |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | CIRC.673-1968 |
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| Record created | February 12, 2000 |
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