Untitled

Toshiko TakaezuWW-1995-141928

1995·Stoneware and glazes·62.2 × 20.3 cm (24 1/2 × 8 in.)

<p>Toshiko Takaezu revolutionized the world of clay with the abstract shapes and painterly glazes of her ceramic forms. She came to her signature closed vessels in the late 1950s, continuing to push their scale to new heights over the course of her long career. Takaezu related her simplified sculptures and expressive glazes to her engagement with Zen Buddhism and Japanese art and culture; for her, the form and decoration were intuitive and she embraced what she called “the unknown, the intangibles” in her work.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1995
Medium: Stoneware and glazes
Dimensions: 62.2 × 20.3 cm (24 1/2 × 8 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Toshiko Takaezu

Artist

Toshiko Takaezu

Painting

Toshiko Takaezu was an American ceramic artist, painter, sculptor, textile artist and educator whose oeuvre spanned a wide range of mediums, including ceramics, weavings, bronzes, and paintings. She was noted for her pioneering work in ceramics and played an important role in the international revival of interest in the ceramic arts. Takaezu is known for her rounded, closed ceramic forms which broke from traditions of clay as a medium for functional objects. Instead she explored clay's potential for aesthetic expression, taking on Abstract Expressionist concepts in a manner that places her work in the realm of postwar abstractionism. She was of Japanese descent and from Pepeeko, Hawaii.

Pepeekeo, HI, USA

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