Shimizu Uichi 清水 卯一 Japanese, 1926-2004
H21.5 × W24.5 × D21.2 cm
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Shimizu employed his signature finger-scraping technique to etch characters symbolizing the four seasons into a thick, creamy iron glaze. Over this layer, white slip brushstrokes evoke the delicate fall of cherry blossom petals, contrasting against the deep, metallic background. On closer inspection, the petals seem to blur with motion—could they instead signify a fierce winter blizzard?
Shimizu Uichi was designated a living national treasure for his contributions using iron-containing glazes (tetsu-yu). His predecessor for this title was the great Ishiguro Munemaro (1893-1968), one of the original ceramic artists designated a title in the very first group of Living National Treasures in 1955. Iron-rich glazes often suggests black or brown coloration but Shimizu Uichi created orange, white and celadon shades as well as his mastery over the metallic glaze. As with the glazes used by Shoji Hamada iron containing glazes date back to Northern Song Dynasty wares but in Shimizu’s hands they were modernised and used on graceful forms to create a different way of using these glazes.
Alongside Hayashi Yasuo, Shimizu Uichi was a part of the avant-garde ceramicist group “Shikokai 四耕社” in the Kyoto scene during the post-war period in the 1950s and 60s. The movement permitted potters to re-conceptualize pottery outside of industry traditions of Japanese ceramics, which had been dominated by the idea that lineage- rather, potters who were children of pottery masters- granted credibility to ceramicists. Shimizu’s frank boldness rippled through the ceramics world in Japan and created fresh aesthetic values, tenets, and precedents for what permitted a ceramic art object.