This piece has found its home. It is kept here as a record of what has passed through our hands.
A vase in the warm persimmon kaki-yu glaze with bold wax-resist (nuki-e) brushwork by Hamada Shoji (1894–1978) — central figure of the Mingei (folk-craft) movement and, in 1955, the first person from the crafts field to be designated a Living National Treasure.
Hamada made the town of Mashiko known around the world, working with local clays and glazes and famously refusing to sign his pots — believing the work should stand on its own beauty, not a name. In 1920 he travelled to England with Bernard Leach and together they founded the Leach Pottery at St Ives, a founding moment of Western studio pottery.
His work is held by the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Museum of Oriental Ceramics in Osaka, the Saint Louis Art Museum, and his own Mashiko Sankokan.
