Large bowl

Maker(s)
Artist: Hamada Shoji (1894-1978)
Historical period(s)
Showa era, ca. 1950
Medium
Stoneware with iron and rice-husk ash glazes
Dimensions
H x Diam: 15.7 x 48.9 cm (6 3/16 x 19 1/4 in)
Geography
Japan, Tochigi prefecture, Mashiko
Credit Line
Purchase — Smithsonian Unrestricted Trust Funds
Collection
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
Accession Number
S1989.30
On View Location
Currently not on view
Classification(s)
Ceramic, Vessel
Type

Bowl

Keywords
Japan, Showa era (1926 - 1989), stoneware
Provenance

From at least early 1950s
Idamae Burati, Rockville, MD, from at least the early 1950s [1]

From 1989
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, purchased from Idamae Burati in 1989

Notes:

[1] The provenance of the bowl is confirmed by a group photograph taken at Hamada's home in the early 1950's, showing the Buratis and Hamada, who is holding the bowl.

Previous Owner(s) and Custodian(s)

Idamae Burati 1909-2000

Label

As a boy in Tokyo, Hamada Shoji chose a career in art after reading the writings of the French Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919). Upon graduating from the Ceramics division of Tokyo Technical Institute, Hamada worked in Saint Ives, Cornwall, with the prominent English ceramist Bernard Leach (1887-1979). In 1924, Hamada settled in Mashiko, a town east of Tokyo that produced utilitarian pottery. There he reassembled several old farmhouses to create the idealized rural setting in which he would develop unique interpretations of traditional country pottery forms. This bowl represents the largest form that Hamada produced regularly. He decorated such bowls by ladling glazes of contrasting colors over the inner surface to form large, simple patterns. During firing in the wood-burning kiln, the glazes melted together to create subtle gradations of color.

Collection Area(s)
Japanese Art
Web Resources
Whistler's Neighborhood
Google Cultural Institute
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