EARLY

Illustrated is a rather stoic, formal and early Shino vase by Tamaoki Yasuo. What’s that you ask, just how early is this kinuta hanaire? With fortune smiling, this boxed vase came with a small catalogue, all in B&W from an early exhibition at Kuroda Toen dated Showa 47 (1972) and while I am sure there are earlier pieces, this is the earliest, definitively dated piece that I have encountered. Like much of Tamaoki’s early work, this pot is sturdy, and as I mentioned very formal in presentation, the proportions are strong and overall relies on the deliberate nature of the glazing to add movement to the piece. There is a simple, Momoyama influenced landscape painted across the surface where areas of one layer of Shino moves over the rich red surface, creating brushstrokes of liquid movement. This pot is as good an example of Tamaoki’s work for the period and foreshadows what is to come where formality gives way to his more casual and liberated pieces, animated by form and surface learned over decades of a dedication to clay, glaze and firing where, “my work, which is in a state of searching and searching, will go on*”.

 (* Tamaoki Yasuo, 1992)