UNSIGNED, SHOWA PERIOD (LATE 20TH CENTURY)

Born in Tokyo in 1919, Shimaoka Tatsuzo graduated from the ceramics department of Tokyo Kogyo Daigaku [Tokyo Industrial University], moving after his demobilisation to the town of Mashiko in Ibaraki Prefecture where he became a student of Hamada Shoji, one of the founding fathers of the Mingei [Folk Craft] movement. In 1954 Shimaoka started his own kiln and he has lived and worked in Mashiko ever since, maintaining a consistently high standard during a period when many other kilns in the town have fallen prey to excessive commercialisation. The most significant event in Shimaoka's creative life was his encounter with Jomon ceramics. After many unsuccessful attempts to reinterpret Jomon design in an idiom that was sympathetic to Mingei ideals, Shimaoka eventually achieved a fusion of Jomon pattern-making with the Korean tradition of impressed slip decoration, as seen in several of the works offered here; he has also been influenced by traditional English ceramics. Shimaoka received the Nihon Mingeikan [Japan Folk Crafts Museum] Prize in 1962 and in 1996 he was named Mukei Bunkazai Hojisha [Holder of an Important Intangible Cultural Property], a position better known by its popular title Ningen Kokuho [Living National Treasure].