Kondo Yuzo was designated a Living National Treasure in 1977 for his work in underglaze cobalt blue (sometsuke). Following his graduation from the Kyoto School of Arts, he worked as an assistant for Tomimoto Kenkichi between 1921 to 1924, while employed on the recommendation of Shoji Hamada. For many years he was considered one of the most skillful potters in Kyoto.
As the story goes, Tomimoto Kenkichi eventually took him in hand and told him that unless he could draw, he would never be a great potter. Kondo responded by enrolling in courses specially teaching drawing and haltingly started applying these skills to his pots. The outcome of all his effort was a superb body of work where his dynamic, large scale decoration based on a set number of themes, reinvigorated the notion of just what blue and white decoration could achieve. His skills as a potter still emerge in his work with high-shouldered vases. These forms are instantly recognizable as Kondo’s forms and are as much his hallmark as is their decoration.
Kondo’s themes – pomegranates, mountain ranges, pine, plum, bamboo and thistles reoccur in his work and have maintained their vivacity across time and in use on alternate forms. The pieces in this exhibition show the use of his motifs such as the thistle on both a cup and a vase, nicely proportioned to relation to the form they decorate. Landscape appears on the later box whose background has been gilt, perhaps a homage to later work by Tomimoto or simply Kondo’s response to the Imperial taste of old Kyoto. Again, they represent a highly original body of work and they have no equal.
1902 Born in Kyoto Prefecture
1914 Entered the pottery wheel course at the training facility at the Kyoto Ceramics Laboratory
1917 Studied under Hamada Shoji
1921 Became an assistant to Tomimoto Kenkichi
1928. Selected for the 9th Imperial Exhibition with "Kuresu Azamimon Kakitori Vase"
（呉須薊文かきとり花瓶)
1929 Selected “Dariyamon-Kuresu Vase” (だりや文呉須花瓶)
at the 10th Imperial Exhibition for the Honorable Mention
1939 Awarded a special prize for “Flower vase with pomegranate designs”(柘榴土焼花瓶)
at the 3rd Bunten Exhibition
1956 Awarded the Japan Traditional Crafts Association Prize for “ Landscape Sometsuke Jar”
at the 3rd Japan Traditional Crafts Exhibition (山水染付壺)
1965 Appointed as Head of the Kyoto City University of the Arts
1970 Awarded the Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon
1973 Awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure, 3rd class, and the Order of Cultural Merit of Kyoto City
1974 Received the award of the Person of Cultural Merit by the city of Kyoto
1977 Appointed as a Living National Treasure in the field of blue and white ceramics
1980 Received the Medal of Honor with Blue Ribbon
1985 Died
Public collection
National Crafts Museum, Kanazawa
The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto
Kondo Museum, Kyoto
Suntory Museum of Art, Tokyo
LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Brooklyn Museum
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
The British Museum
University of Michigan Museum of Art
National Museum of Asian Art