Another great program year culminated on a fantastic Spring Day at King’s Chapel Parish House on May 23rd as we conducted our Annual Meeting and Tea and enjoyed a brilliant talk by CSC member Nonie Gadsden on the Japanese artist Toshiko Takaezu and the MFA’s current exhibit on this remarkable talent.
The business side of the meeting saw the Executive Board and Board of Directors remain pretty much unchanged with my gratitude for all those who remain committed to keeping this a viable organization. There was a small decrease in our bank account compared to where we were last year so, please renew your membership as soon as possible and consider an upgrade in membership status or an extra gift – it would be very much appreciated.
Also, please review your Blue Book for any members who you may not have seen at meetings or during our Zoom lectures. Since Covid, we all have tended to fall out of touch with friends and fellow members – there is contact information with members’ phone numbers or email addresses in the Blue Book, so please consider giving someone a call you haven’t seen or heard from in a while.
And finally, our diligent Program Director Anne Lanning is actively looking for speakers and topics for next year’s program. If you know of someone or heard a speaker you’d think would be great for our group, or have a topic you’d like to hear, or would like to present something yourself, please let Anne Lanning know! We’d love to hear from you.
Have a great summer,
Martha Pinello
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2024 SEASON USHERED IN WITH A TALK ON JAPANESE CERAMICS
The January 25th meeting via Zoom with a Japanese theme was presented to our group by Andrew L. Maske, Professor of Museum Studies and the Director of the Gordon L. Gossup Museum of Anthropology at Michigan’s Wayne State University in Detroit. Professor Laske spoke on the subject of Lineage and Legacy: Shoji Hamada and the Internationalization of Mingei-style Ceramics.
Andrew started with a basic introduction of the two themes of the talk for those of us unfamiliar with the potter Shoji Hamada and the tradition of ceramics known as ‘Mingei’.
Shoji Hamada (1898-1978) was one of the first in a group of potters in Japan named as a Living National Treasure in 1955 and considered by many as one of the greatest potters in the world in the 20th century.
Images portray a simple rustic potter, but he was in fact a highly educated man. He lived in a rural village setting up several antique buildings on the site to use as his studio/workshop and where his grandson works today.
As for Mingei, it is a two-character word meaning “Art of the People” and that is meant as art more in the ‘craft’ sense of the word as opposed to the fine art sense and also incorporating the meaning of folk art, and not just Japanese folk art, but folk art from around the world. Mingei can also include craft items and the crafts people who make them; people who did not sign their work and remain unknown to us.
In addition to Mingei folk art or craft, there is also a Mingei Movement whose followers believe that machine made goods contribute to the isolation of the human spirit and the decline of society and that hand work is the remedy. The originator and proponent of this movement was the Japanese philosopher Soetsu Yanagi (1889-1961) who was not himself a craftsman, but rather a philosopher and aesthetic thinker. A book of his essays entitled The Unknown Craftsman was compiled by a close friend and associate of his, none other than the English potter Bernard Leach
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Above Left: Shoji Hamada at his potter’s wheel. Right: Hamada’s country home and studio.
(1887-1979). Leach was raised in Hong Kong and visited Japan as a young man and befriended Yanagi as they were such kindred spirits. Leach not only translated and compiled Yanagi’s book but wrote a seminal one of his own entitled The Potter’s Book in 1946 which greatly influenced potters through the 1970s. Leach often collaborated with Hamada Shoji and Yanagi Soetsu over his long life.
Where did this Mingei ideal come from? Yanagi liked to think that this philosophy arose organically from his own musings, but it is today obvious that it had its genesis in the western Arts and Crafts movement pioneered in Britain by William Morris and John Ruskin in the late 19th century. The comparison is not exact, but one can see similarities between the two philosophies: The Arts and Crafts movement focused on human-generated design over the mindless production of machine-made goods whereas the Mingei movement focused on handwork of the craftsperson and the beauty that results from non-attachment and the repetition of the creative act.
Mingei Movement artists/makers attempted to integrate the most significant aspects of old Mingei items into their work by using natural materials and focusing on hand-production and creating utilitarian forms.
Under the influence of Leach, Hamada made several trips to the U.S. in the 1950s, especially to college campuses giving ceramic demonstrations and having an immense impact on students, many of whom went onto become professional ceramic artists.
Shoji Hamada’s eldest son died early in his life, but the kiln continued with a second son Shinsaku Hamad (1923-2023) and has now passed onto a grandson, Tomoo Hamada (b.1960). All three generations stuck to the utilitarian nature of their work. This miniature dynasty of potters also spawned a subset of apprentices - all accomplished craftsmen in their own right, some even themselves being named Living National Treasures in their own right.
Since 1978 there has been a Mingei International Museum in San Diego, CA which celebrates crafts from around the world. Page 3
Above Left: A photo of Soetsu Yanagi, c. 1955. Center: A typical Seto ware Mingei style dish emphasizing the craft of its unknown maker. Right: a piece crafted by Bernard Leach incorporating a Mingei aesthetic.
Three generations of Hamada family’s work all exemplifying the utilitarian and craft aspect of the Mingei aesthetic, yet each representing the potter’s unique style. From left to right the work of grandfather Shoji, son Shinsaku, and grandson Tomoo.
Although the Hamadas did not sign their works (in the Mingei tradition) their pieces can often be identified from some signature motifs that they use frequently in their decoration. Left to right: Shoji, Shinsaku and Tomoo.
MARTHA WASHINGTON’S ‘STATES’ PLATES FEATURED IN FEBRUARY
In a pleasing and enlightening contrast to the barrage February automobile sale ads celebrating President’s Day, the CSC celebrated Washington’s birthday month with a Zoom presentation by the current editor of Ceramics in America, Mr. Ron Fuchs II, who shared with our group the story of Martha Washington’s “United States China”.
Ron’s introduction started with an 1806 household inventory written by Mary Fitzhugh Custis at her home ‘Arlington’ in Virginia which she shared with her husband George Washington Parke Custis. Most of it was mundane household effects, but the finer things were listed in detail such as the heirloom services of Chinese export porcelain that her husband had inherited from his grandmother Martha Washington. One was the ‘Cincinnati’ Service decorated with the badge of the Order of the Cincinnati that George Washington bought in 1786. The other service was a large tea, coffee, and chocolate service that had been gifted to Martha in 1796 which was called
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‘The United States China’. About two dozen pieces from the service are known to have survived, but it was not until the discovery of Mary’s inventory, only recently did we know the extent of the size of the service. It was one of the largest and most complex hot beverage services of its day and it also hints at what it meant to those who commissioned, gifted, used, inherited, rescued, and curated it over time. It was known since the early 19th century as “The States’ service. It was decorated with a chain border with each link containing the name of one of the states of the union in1796. In a central rounder is Martha Washington’s monogram framed within a laurel wreath and set against a gilded sunburst with a ribbon bearing the Latin inscription DECUS ET TUTAMEN ABILLO, the rim edged with an image of a snake biting its own tail.
The service was commissioned by a Dutch merchant, most possibly Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest, as a gift from him to Martha Washington. Van Braam spent most of his life working for the Dutch East India Company, the last couple of years in Canton before emigrating to the U.S. in 1796. When he arrived in the U.S. the ‘States’ service was amongst the luxuries he carried with him to gift to Mrs. Washington. There has always been some speculation as to why he went to
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such trouble and expense to give a gift to someone he didn’t even know. Some think it was out of admiration for George Washington, but others suggest that it was a way to gain access to the First Couple. This was really just one of many gifts from manufacturers and politicians looking to gain access to and favors from the Washingtons.
Portrait Miniature of Martha Washington
As for the service itself, tea, and to some extent coffee and chocolate drinking, was often associated with women and entertaining, part of a culture of visiting. And tea parties were one of the few social occasions that were led by women that were for both men and women; the tea equipage then was an indispensable prop for polite entertaining. And the fact that the service was of Chinese export porcelain added a special cache as it had long been prized as a mark of wealth and good taste. And in the United States it took on a new meaning of independence from Britain’s restrictive trade policies. The service was designed by Van Braam relying upon prints and emblem books, drawings and his own designs. It honored Martha, but also sent a message of strength, unity and permanence for the new nation. The chain represented strength through unity, the snake swallowing its tail is an ancient motif known as an ouroboros, symbolizes infinity and eternity. The sunburst represents glory, but not for oneself, but for the world. The Latin motto translates to “Our union is the defense against him” (indicating George III).
Van Braam would have most likely worked with a Chinese porcelain merchant in Canton who specialized in custom work, choosing the forms from porcelain blanks supplied by Jingdezhen that were then hand-painted in the bespoke design, and the enamels fired in a muffle kiln. The entire service could have been ready in a matter of weeks.
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As pieces from the service have gone missing over the years researchers have begun reconstructing what they think the forms of the service might have looked like based upon surviving Export wares from the period. See below – typical forms that were standard shapes in Export tea sets of the period.
The inventory records at least four different shapes for cups and saucers. Originally there would have probably been at least twelve double-handled covered cups and saucers. These were usually not in ordinary tea services, but were considered luxuries and were called cabinet cups, intended for display. When they were used, they were intended for drinking hot chocolate (considered a breakfast beverage) or caudle which was composed of gruel, wine, spices, and sugar which was served to new mothers. No other cups and saucers have survived, but an illustration from 1859 shows there were also double handled cups and saucers, based upon 1750s French Sevres designs. These were unusual as most Chinese export cups of the period were hand-less tea bowls. There was also a set of coffee cups which would have been handled can-form cups also based upon French porcelain models. Other pieces of the service included butter dishes and several round saucershaped serving dishes and four smaller shaped dishes as well as separate individual plates which is not typical of average services of the time.
Judging from the wear of extant pieces and fragments found on the Mt. Vernon estate, it is obvious the Washingtons really used this service, and there is one known instance of a single piece being given to a guest as a souvenir or relic.
When Martha died, the service was bequeathed to her grandson George Washington Parke Custis, along with the Cincinnati service, family portraits, and even Washington’s bed – all to commemorate dynastic connections. When Custis moved to Arlington in 1806 this inheritance came with him. As Mary’s inventory suggested, by this time the service had already lost some of its pieces. Unlike a lot of other inherited relics, it appears the family chose to give many of the pieces away. This indicates that the service was now valued more for its historical associations with the Page 7
As time went on, pieces of the service became valued relics – here a well-worn plate from the service is enshrined in a frame carved from the wood of Connecticut’s historic Charter Oak.
Washingtons than for its usefulness as a beverage service. Such associational objects only appreciated in value throughout the 19th century as they were physical reminders of the founding of the nation and as tools of crafting a shared national identity and history. This association of the Custis family to the Washingtons provided the Custises, and later the Lee family (which their daughter married into) the social capital for them to maintain their position in society. They were now the ‘keepers of the Washington legacy’. The porcelain services and Washington silver were all used for important occasions.
By 1840 most of the service seems to have gone from Arlington. Mary Anna Randolph Custis inherited Arlington in 1855 with strict instructions that upon her death all the remaining Washington relics go to the eldest grandson, George Washington Custis Lee. During the Civil War Arlington was occupied by the Union army, and by the end of the war only two pieces of the States service remained. What was remaining of all the Washington relics was moved to the U.S. Patent Office where they were put on view with the caption “Captured from Arlington”. They were later moved to the Smithsonian National Museum in 1880. The pieces were returned, after much debate, to the children of Mary Custis Lee in 1901.
About two dozen pieces of the States service survive today. Mt. Vernon has about half of it.
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th CENTURY BRITISH COMMEMORATIVE WARES PRESENTED FOR THE VIVIAN HAWES MEMORIAL TALK
The last of the season’s Zoom presentations took place on March 28th when our group was treated to a talk entitled From Charles I to the Glorious Revolution: English Commemorative Delftware. It was also our annual Vivian Hawes Memorial Lecture honoring a beloved CSC member and her contributions to ceramics scholarship. And as British ceramics was one of Vivian’s favorite fields of interest this subject was especially appropriate in remembering her. Thus, our speaker was particularly well-chosen as we had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth, Director, Global Premodern Art, MSC Lecturer in Early Modern French and British History of Art, the University of Edinburgh. Previously Caroline was a curator of ceramics at the V&A Museum in London.
Caroline began by setting the scene in which her story unfolded. 17th century Britain was a place of rapid change, not just politically, but one of rising literacy rates with a growing print culture, and a growing consumer market, especially amongst the middle class and lower gentry. The huge political upheaval from the civil war, the beheading of Charles I, the institution of a commonwealth, and the eventual restoration of the monarchy in 1660 had a great effect on the visual and decorative arts – not just painting and sculpture, but also everyday material objects. And it was the burgeoning delftware industry at this time that played a key role in the moment as these cataclysmic political events were scaled down to small, handheld, yet dynamic, objects that captured what was happening at that point in time. These objects created a visual shorthand of political engagement for their users. Delftware was the first ceramic material that was used for propaganda and commemorative purposes documenting both public opinion and private loyalty. These objects also were based upon popular print culture beginning a long British history of political commemoration on pots.
Most of the images Caroline shared with us were of white tin-glazed earthenwares, primarily from London factories, the industry beginning there in the 1570s when the first license to produce ‘galleyware’ – based upon continental faience style wares – was granted. The wares were a combination of local London clay and calcium carbonate and one of the benefits of these wares was that they could be decorated quite easily. After being dipped into a glaze of tin and oxide, when dried the pieces could be decorated right onto the dry surface where the design was quickly absorbed, a method Caroline compared to working quickly in watercolor The design was spontaneous, and errors were virtually irreparable. One of the first potteries established was the Pickleherring Factory on the southside of the Thames, by a Dutchman named Christian Wilhelm in about 1618. By 1628, he was able to obtain a 21-year monopoly for producing delftware.
Between 1642 and 1651 the Civil War embroiled the nation; Charles I was executed and about 7% of the country’s population perished. Emotions and loyalties ran high. People displayed their loyalties in some of the objects they used. Also, during the war, Royalists were obliged to turn over
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their valuables, such as silver table wares, to support the war effort, so everyday table forms were replaced with ceramic ones, often bearing arms, ciphers, or images indicating where their loyalties lied. One had to be cautious as to one ’ s guest list and make sure the party was of a like mind, otherwise possession of such objects could land one in a spot of trouble with the authorities.
English Civil War delftware adapted to the times. First image from the left: a delftware candleholder after silver forms of the period, this one from the Pickleherring Pottery, circa 1648, bearing the Arms of the Fishmonger’s Livery Guild. The two central images are delftware wine bottles displaying the owner’s allegiance to the king bearing the letters CRRex,along with a crown, one with a rare manganese colored ground, circa 1644-1645. On the right, a commemorative bust of Charles I honoring his martyrdom
With the victory of Oliver Cromwell and the creation of the Commonwealth (with Cromwell as Lord Protector) life continued albeit with a notably somber, puritanical cast. During the Civil War and the Commonwealth there was a media revolution with an explosion of printed media on both political and religious topics. This feeds into the influences that we see on delftware through this entire period. During the Commonwealth, therefore, the purchase and possession of wares demonstrating support for the king and the royal cause would have been treasonous and liable to penalties. And yet, potteries continued to produce these wares and a growing middle class continued to purchase them. Page 10
PREVIOUS PAGE: Two chargers demonstrating the conflicting loyalties of the country: Left: a piece from the Commonwealth period, dated 1653, depicting a scene with “Christ being Escorted to the Supper at Emmaus” reflecting some of the more religious tones of the period In contrast, on the right, a charger in support of the martyred Charles I in all his royal regalia alongside his three children – all in loyal support of the continuing line of the monarchy.
With the restoration of Charles II to the monarchy in 1660, the commemoratives market thrived as consumers wanted something tangible to remember the historic event and to display their loyalty. Objects functional as well as commemorative were popular. The designs are formulaic and rapid in production, indicating the objects’ demand and the rapid response to that demand.
ABOVE: Left and Center: A simple caudle cup and a not-so-simple ‘puzzle jug’ both with Charles II’s portrait and initials and on the right, a charger with another portrait of the king, alongside one of the many print sources that were then available at the time from which a painter could decorate these pieces. As one can see the demand was high, the process rapid and the imagery not as exact as the printed source!
Many songs, ballads, and broadsheets were printed celebrating the restoration, part of this ‘media explosion. One of the favorite legends about the king was the story of “The Boscobel Oak” which the king himself was reputedly fond of retelling ad nauseam. Simply put, after the Royalist defeat at the Battle of Worcester, Charles fled, hotly pursued by Parliamentary forces. Local supporters cut his hair and disguised him as a laborer and he spent the night in a huge oak tree in Boscobel Forest, undetected, fleeing the next morning. This was commemorated with a delftware plaque and one such plaque was later mounted in a frame made from the bark of the actual oak tree; such was the importance of this historic artefact.
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PREVIOUS PAGE, left: a delftware plaque commemorating Charles II’s story of the Boscobel Oak, surrounded by a bark frame from the actual tree, along with a period print source illustrating the Parliamentary forces searching for the fugitive heir to the throne. Right: a period painting of Charles II in his coronation regalia (all of which was re-made upon Charles’ return as the Parliamentarians had taken all the royal jewels during the war) alongside a period engraving all providing the inspiration for the delftware commemorative.
The commemorative tradition continued with objects representing the king’s marriage and the coronation of his heirs and continues to this day in every imaginable form and medium. Whether for a display of loyalty or a commemoration of a historic moment, it seems consumers still needed to hold some semblance of a connection to these people and these events in their hands.
‘IN
PERSON’ BITS ‘N’ PIECES PROGRAM PROVIDES PRETTY POTS AND INTERESTING
BACK STORIES
On a perfectly beautiful Spring afternoon members convened in person for our Club’s annual Bits ‘n’ Pieces meeting at King’s Chapel Parish House in Boston where members bring in recent acquisitions to share or items that they have questions about that they’d like answered. This year, a special request was added – any items that have an interesting history or story behind them. As always, we were not disappointed….
The first lot presented was from our resident Kutahya pottery collector, Nic Johnson, who brought in these three 20th century mugs. Previously a fritware produced largely by the Armenians, by this point in the mid20th century the industry had largely been taken over by the Muslim Turks. Characterized by overall scrolling patterns, drawn in outline, and simply filled in with two other colors. The mug farthest to the right is the product of a larger, more industrial kiln production. Nic was curious about its rather formulaic design and how it was decorated. It was suggested that the pattern outlines were transfer-printed on and the navy blue and turquoise just in-filled by hand. The other, earlier pieces used hand decoration. Page 12
Our next item was brought in by Club President Martha Pinello who shared with us this Japanese porcelain blue-and-white plate, most likely from the first third of 20th century. The back story was that Martha’s ancestors were missionaries to China in the early 20th century. She believes that the Japanese plate might have been acquired when a family member had to take a sick child to Japan as the hospitals were better there than in China. Although the plate is not rare and was a popular pattern at the time, it has always been prized in Martha’s family as part of their ancestors’ service and history. Here, an example of an object’s appeal lies more in its story and what it represents to its owners than in its material value.
Next were contributions from SHARDS editor Jeffrey Brown. ABOVE, Left: a late 17th century delft tankard with pewter fittings with the owner’s initials, and the body with chinoiserie decoration. Center: the tankard bottom with an unidentified ‘fish and arrow’ mark; Amanda Lange has suggested possibly French (Rouen) or most likely a German factory. Right: A circa 1760 Chinese export porcelain leaf-shaped dish, painted in underglaze blue with an outdoor figural scene – a couple, flowers, tree, and a pair of quail. The design, taken from late 17th century Japanese kakiemon wares, also appears on Meissen porcelain.
BELOW, Left & Center: A Chinese export porcelain armorial chocolate cup bearing the Arms of Beckford for William Beckford, English Regency rake and dilettante, art collector, author, amateur architect. This small cup represents a trans-global back-story. William’s father died early leaving his young son immensely rich – a wealth largely based in Jamaican sugar plantations. The boy, at age ten, was the owner of 3000 enslaved people working on those plantations. The armorial tea set, special-ordered from China, was painstakingly created by anonymous potters and painters, shipped half a world away, to be a small part of Beckford’s hugely extravagant lifestyle, all paid for on the backs of anonymous slaves another half a world
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away. Pieces from Beckford’s enormous art collection can now be found in museums all over the world.
ABOVE, right: A piece of contemporary ceramics, a pair of pears with bronze stem and leaves, cold-painted earthenware from a company called Penkridge, located in the English Mid-lands. Back-story: a Christmas gift from the Editor’s charming wife.
The varied program of ceramics continued with a great Jazz Age bowl (LEFT) brought in by Gail Homer who was intrigued to find out that it was by prolific British ceramicist Edward Kent who worked for the Lancashire pottery factory of Pilkington’s between 1924 and 1929. Gail knew of Pilkington’s through her collecting of tiles as the firm existed from the 19th century into the early 21st , tile-making being one of their mainstay specialties. How Edward Kent fits into this equation is cause for speculation
CENTER is a charming sauce tureen brought in by Jo Ann Brown. Transfer-printed by Spode, circa 1820, in the ROME or TIBER pattern. The bucolic scene incorporates images of Castel Sant’Angelo, Trajan’s Column, and the Vatican, all spliced together from print sources in a book entitled Views of Rome & Vicinity (1796-1798) and most likely pieced together to avoid breaking any copyright laws of the period. A real bonus is the tureen’s original ladle, the bowl of which is also printed with a Roman scene.
RIGHT: Our Dedham Pottery collector, Jim Kaufman, treated us to one of the prizes in his collection - a Hugh Robertson sang-du-boeuf, or oxblood vase, circa 1886. Hugh Robertson immigrated to America and established the Chelsea Keramics Works in Dedham with his family; he was a brilliant potter and sculptor who worked mainly in the aesthetic movement style of the later 19th century until he abruptly changed course and became obsessed with Chinese ceramics – especially their oxblood glazes. He concentrated on
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simple forms and experimented with glazes until he achieved this metallic lustre red glaze. Unfortunately, his experiments and the expense of the production forced him to price the vases at $300.00 each, which only the wealthiest Gilded Age patrons could afford. His ensuing bankruptcy forced him into his final iteration: the development of a crackle glaze (based on Asian examples) which made the reinvented Dedham Pottery a financial success. Two similar oxblood vases, called the ‘Twin Stars of Chelsea’ are on permanent display at the MFA.
Former CSC President and PEM Curator, Bill Sargent, brought in two pieces with back stories indeed, reaching back a couple of centuries at least. LEFT: A stack if Chinese late Ming period bowls, fused together within their original kiln sagger. Bill was on tour in China in the great ceramic production center of Jingdezhen and he literally saw this on the ground and picked it up! He recounted highways being laid and cut-throughs excavated and pottery shards sticking out of the exposed earth such was the extent of centuries of waster pits all around the city. RIGHT: This jug represents part of Bill’s personal back story as he was originally trained as a potter and loved working with brown clay. He also admitted he had a “thing” for cemeteries and memorial inscriptions and histories. And so, this charming English brownware jug appealed to him immediately as it carries the memorial for a child who died before his first birthday in 1830. From a Halifax of Yorkshire pottery.
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ABOVE: We are always delighted to see what fellow member and miniaturist Lee-Ann Wessel brings to share with the group. This year, a trip to Colonial Williamsburg inspired a group of miniature delft shaving wares including guglets, wash basins and shaving bowls. The miniature washstand was created by a friend of Lee-Ann’s who does furniture – all copies of pieces in the museum collection.
Lee-Ann teamed up with another miniature-maker who works in metal, and he helped her create these Italian maiolica chargers by providing her with a tooled brass form from which she could fabricate molds to cast these lobed and ribbed-edged dishes. The top part of the picture on the left shows the original Renaissance period pieces that she replicates.
And finally, Carolyn Parsons Roy shared with us some objects which form a sub-set of her collection: a group of pieces which all belonged to former CSC Presidents which she admits happened more by accident than choice. As Carolyn is herself a former President, I guess this entire group is now part of “The Ceramics Study Club of Boston Past Presidents’ Collection”! ABOVE, Left: an example of a Chelsea plate from a Page 16
group of three that originally belonged to Vivian Hawes, acquired by Diana Edwards, and have passed now to Carolyn. ABOVE, right: A mottled sauceboat from South Yorkshire, also with a Diana Edwards provenance, originally acquired from prominent dealer English Gary Atkins. BELOW: A pair of 18th century shell-shaped salt dishes with both a Vivian Hawes and Louise Richardson provenance, produced in Bristol…
ANNUAL MEETING & TEA SHOWCASES TAKAEZU CERAMICS
The Ceramics Study Club concluded its program year on May 23rd with our annual business meeting preceding the lecture at the King’s Chapel Parish House in Boston. We closed our series of talks as we had begun them in January with a lecture on Japanese ceramics and were delighted to have CSC member Nonie Gadsen, the Katherine Lane Weems Senior Curator of American decorative Arts and Sculpture at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston speak to us on the topic of Toshiko Takaezu: Shaping Abstraction which is the title of an exhibition that Nonie and her team put together and is currently on show at the MFA in the Arts of the Americas Wing.
“Toshiko Takaezu may be the most important American abstract artist that you have never heard of” is how Nonie opened her talk and she also said, “It is time for that to change.”
Toshiko Takaezu seated amongst some of her ‘Closed Forms’
Takaezu was a technically masterful and innovative artist best known for her sculptural ceramics which she called “closed forms”. She created rounded shapes in a range of sizes and profiles with
only a nipple-like opening at the top to allow gases to escape during the firing. Her closed forms eloquently merged this soft shape with her gestural glazing style in which colors were brushed, poured, dripped or splashed onto the surface. In essence Takaezu’s ceramics are abstract paintings in the round. Takaezu was a key figure in the reconceptualization of ceramics in the 1950s, shifting from the functional craft tradition to the realm of fine art. She continued to develop this signature style of closed forms for over five decades. Though lesser known, she was equally talented in weaving, painting, and bronze casting.
Nonie and her colleagues feel that Takaezu has been under-recognized for her contributions, largely due to her gender, race, and primary medium of ceramics, but also because she did not court the art market, instead focusing on making and teaching Their exhibition argues that Takaezu’s cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary practice makes her one of the most compelling American Abstract artists of the 20th century. She challenged narrow definitions of American abstraction, pushing it out of the traditional frame or canvas, into three dimensions.
Takaezu was born in Hawai’i in 1922 to immigrant parents from Okinawa. In 1879 Japan forcibly annexed the island of Okinawa where they insisted the locals stop using their indigenous language and practices and assimilate into Japanese culture. This led to discrimination against Okinawans in the Japanese community, and when Toshiko’s family emigrated to Hawaii, there were tensions between Japanese and Okinawan communities there as well where they worked initially as sugar cane laborers. This scrutiny of ‘who they were’ continued during the war where, on the mainland west coast, Japanese were forced into internment camps; fortunately, that did not happen in Hawai’i. To initially fit in, Toshiko’s father insisted every one of his eleven children learn to speak Japanese and adopt a Japanese name. Toshiko refused and always used her Okinawan name. She quit high school to help support the family and was introduced to clay through a chance opportunity to work for the Hawaiian Potter’s Guild. She fell in love with the medium and started to experiment on her own. In 1948 she enrolled in the University of Hawai’i to study ceramics, and in 1951 at the age of 29 boldly let her family and the islands to study further at the renown Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan where she trained under the head of ceramics, a Finnish immigrant named Maija Grotell who had an enormous influence on Toshiko. While at Cranbrook, she also minored in Weaving under another Finnish instructor Marianne Strengell.
Above: One of Takaezu’s woven pieces. Page 18
In 1955-1956 Toshiko continued her education with an eight-month trip to Japan and Okinawa where she toured regional potteries and met some of the potters which surprised some of the artists as they had never heard of a woman potter before. She visited a wide range of potters, some who revived historical styles others who followed the mingei, or folk art, movement, and still others who were pioneering the new Japanese avant-garde approach to sculptural ceramics. Toward the end of the trip Toshiko spent three days in the studio of Kaneshige Toyo who made traditional unglazed Bizen-style pots. The elder craftsman had a strong influence on Toshiko – not necessarily in technique or style, but in his working methods. Toshiko gained an appreciation for the Japanese approach of merging art and life, a practice that she developed and followed the rest of her career.
Toshiko returned in 1956 and took a position teaching ceramics at the Cleveland Institute of Art where she continued to experiment with exaggerated, extended necks or handles, and her brushstrokes were getting looser and more animated. It was in Cleveland that she developed her signature style – the closed form, and delved into glaze experiments, becoming an expert in glaze formulation and use, creating depth and layers to her captivating glazes.
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Two examples of Takaezu’s ‘Closed Forms – a sphere, and a group of ‘tree’ forms, the latter actually created by a coil construction as the pieces are too large to throw upon a wheel.
At this point in her talk, Nonie shifted direction to tell us a little about the creation the MFA’s exhibition of Takaezu’s work which was created in collaboration with the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum in Long Island City, NY which has its own exhibition of Takaezu’s work on through July 28th and has spearheaded a new monograph on the artist.
Vital to the MFA’s exhibition was a community group called the Table of Voices. Founded in 2019, Table of Voices is a program that actively collaborates with Boston Community members to offer more expansive and accessible interpretations of the work presented at the MFA. This program recognizes that museum staff members do not represent all perspectives. Instead, they bring together community members who are experts in their own fields whose perspectives we think could help us better understand how to present the exhibition. This Table of Voices included the president of the Toshiko Takaezu Foundation, a great niece of Toshiko’s, a former apprentice of the artist, two artists, a weaver, and a Hawaiian student from Northeastern University.
In order to allow our readers the ‘pleasure of discovery’ of Takaezu’s work, Nonie invited everyone to visit the Museum of Fine Arts’ exhibition….
TOSHIKO TAKAEZU: SHAPING ABSTRACTION EXHIBITION
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON
The Editor wishes to acknowledge the assistance of fellow member Nic Johnson in editing this issue of SHARDS, allowing me to look more intelligent than I really am. Jeffrey Brown
