Shoji Hamada: 40 Years On

SHOJI HAMADA 40 YEARS ON

Bowl / SH070

Shoji Hamada Image: courtesy of the Consulate General of Japan

Teabowl / SH054

Teabowl / SH056

Faceted Teapot / SH058

Jar / SH075

Plate / SH079

Jug / SH081

Okinawa Style Teabowl / SH043

Perspective / Shoji Hamada (1894-1978) was so famous a potter, such an important figure in the history of studio ceramics and craft (in Britain and the USA as well as Japan), that it can be difficult, exactly forty years on from his death, to see his pots with new eyes. And yet his best work, and we have a fine representation here (groups of brush-painted and engraved tea bowls and yunomis, slab-built bottles, tablewares), is as fresh as ever. As much as he drew on traditional Far Eastern and early English forms (our medieval pots and early slipwares), Hamada was very much a modern master who developed a powerfully expressive twentieth century language. The pots with generously dipped and poured glazes and slips have an energy comparable to the most gestural abstraction in painting, and there is a fluent motion in his succinct brushwork, much of it of vibrant foliate motifs (he had a great love of botany).

Hamada was as much a painter as he was a potter, someone who knew how to animate surface, extending the free rhythms of his throwing with expansive marking across the face of the clay. They are pots that brought a new economy into Japanese decorative wares.

In Britain we have a particular affection for Shoji Hamada. After all it was he who with Bernard Leach helped to stimulate the early years of British studio pottery during his brief stay in St Ives at the beginning of the 1920s, and who continued to visit and exhibit here for the rest of his life, a warm and lively presence.

He became a star, as far from any concept of Yanagi’s anonymous ‘Unknown Craftsman’ as one can imagine. When he died even The Birmingham Post confidently headlined their obituary ‘Hamada; master of influence’. He brought a boldness to the making of pots that went beyond easy concepts of ‘rural’ or ‘urban’ work. It was both sophisticated and wonderfully immediate, bringing out the pulse and fluidity of the clay with great exuberance.

David Whiting, 2018

Eight Sided Vase / SH074

Curator's CHOICE / “This piece is a personal favourite, embodying all that I anticipate in a Hamada pot. The clay body is open and lively, its spirit matched only by the brief and assured turning of the base.

There are no second thoughts, nor doubts this pot calls loudly to its folk art roots yet is as fresh and contemporary as the day it was born.�

Dr Matthew Tyas, Leach Pottery

Teabowl / SH056

Curator's CHOICE / “This bowl has a wonderful freedom to its throwing and turning, but truly comes alive in its firing. The ash glaze, its rivulets of amber and toffee, flows from the rim to the foot - melting and gathering haste in the heat of the kiln. The surface is soft but has such tension, for this glaze can be a risk, can be a failure. But here, this risk has paid a beautiful dividend in this striking yet intimate piece.�

Dr Matthew Tyas, Leach Pottery

Teabowl / SH054

Shoji Hamada: 40 Years On December 8 2018 - February 24 2019

Enquiries

Dr Matthew Tyas Leach Pottery, Higher Stennack, St. Ives, TR26 2HE 01736 799703 matthew@leachpottery.com www.leachpottery.com In association with Oxford Ceramics Gallery Images courtesy of Oxford Ceramics Gallery, unless otherwise stated