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Premium Artcurial
21
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Shoji HAMADA
See original version (French)
21
-
Shoji HAMADA
See original version (French)
Estimate €1,500 - €2,000
Voluntary lot
Description
Shoji HAMADA
Quadrangular vase – 1950
Stoneware from the Mashiko kilns, with a beige and brown glaze
Decorated with brown foliage and white lines
22.50 × 15.50 × 8 cm
Stoneware from the Mashiko kilns, with a beige and brown glaze, decorated with brown foliage and white lines
8.85 × 6.10 × 3.14 in
Provenance: Galerie Tanakaya, Paris
Acquired from the gallery by
the current owner
A certificate will be issued to the purchaser
Born on 9 December 1894 in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, Shoji Hamada was a Japanese ceramicist and a leading figure in the Mingei movement, which championed folk crafts in the face of increasing industrialisation. Drawn to the arts from an early age, he studied ceramics at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, where he initially trained under the ceramist Itaya Hazan, before meeting Kanjirō Kawai, who became a close friend and lifelong collaborator. His meeting with the British potter Bernard Leach marked a turning point: in 1920, the two men founded Leach Pottery together in St Ives, Cornwall, where Hamada spent three years perfecting his wheel-throwing technique. On his return to Japan in 1923, he settled in Mashiko, a small town which he helped transform into a major centre for Japanese ceramics, a reputation it retains to this day. Hamada developed a style that blended Japanese tradition with modernity, favouring simple, functional forms over decorative sophistication. His work earned him international recognition: the Japanese government designated him a Living National Treasure in 1955, a distinction crowning his vital contribution to the mingei movement and to contemporary ceramic art. He died on 5 January 1978 in Mashiko.
Shoji HAMADA
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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