Kiyomizu Rokubey VIII 八代 清水六兵衞
Sculpture Cube, 1987
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Kiyomizu Rokubey VII 七代 清水六兵衞 1922-2006
Incense burner (ceramic form), Sekitōyō 9, 席陶容 九, 1989
Stoneware
8 5/8 × 4 3/4 × 4 5/8 in (21.8 × 12.2 × 11.7 cm)
Artist’s mark impressed on base
Wood storage box inscribed: Sekitōyō Kyu 席陶容 九 (Sekitōyō nine); signed: Rokubey 六兵衞; sealed: Kiyo 清
Published: “Shichidai Kiyomizu Rokubey: Sekikatō-ten 七代 清水六兵衞 席花陶展 (The seventh generation Kiyomizu Rokubey: Exhibition of ceramics for arranged flowers, November 23 – 29, 1989),” Nihonbashi Takashimaya, Tokyo, November 1989
Wood storage box inscribed: Sekitōyō Kyu 席陶容 九 (Sekitōyō nine); signed: Rokubey 六兵衞; sealed: Kiyo 清
Published: “Shichidai Kiyomizu Rokubey: Sekikatō-ten 七代 清水六兵衞 席花陶展 (The seventh generation Kiyomizu Rokubey: Exhibition of ceramics for arranged flowers, November 23 – 29, 1989),” Nihonbashi Takashimaya, Tokyo, November 1989
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In 1988, the year following his succession as the seventh-generation Rokubei, he held a solo exhibition titled Ichirin-zashi Katōyō at Ichibata in Matsue, Shimane Prefecture. This piece was exhibited in...
In 1988, the year following his succession as the seventh-generation Rokubei, he held a solo exhibition titled Ichirin-zashi Katōyō at Ichibata in Matsue, Shimane Prefecture. This piece was exhibited in that presentation.
While the Katōyō series presented in the succession exhibition was characterized by forms created through linear incisions into pre-formed bodies, from 1988 onward he began to construct form through incisions originating from small openings. This shift allowed a more explicit integration of “mouth,” distortion, and overall sculptural form.
In this work, a bullet-like form is cut with incisions running horizontally and diagonally, generating openings and distortions within the body. The surface is covered with Irabo glaze combined with a reddish-brown glaze, applied in bands that correspond to the openings and cuts. This use of “bands” as a decorative device had already appeared in his earlier “Hiroshi 洋 / Yūji 裕詞” period as a young artist. Here, however, it functions as a method of visually articulating the structural qualities of the form.
Based in Kyoto since the mid-Edo period, the Rokubey family (also spelled Rokubey) has sustained it through continual ceramic reinvention across 8 generations. The seventh Rokubey (1922–2006) was born in Nagoya as the third son of the Tsukamoto family. He studied architecture at Nagoya Technical School
and metal casting at Tokyo University of the Arts.
In 1951, he became the adopted heir to the sixth Rokubey, and entered the field of ceramics. Unlike his predecessors, his formative training lay not in painting but in architecture and metalwork. In his early practice, under the name Hiroshi, he produced works that explored the materiality of clay through thick-walled forms, flattened vessels, and deliberately distorted shapes. These works exerted a transformative influence, articulating a critical stance toward the conventions of ceramic production grounded in rationality and efficiency.
However, he later developed an aversion to what he perceived as the excessive expressiveness of clay, and in the late 1960s he turned to metal sculpture under the name Kiyomizu Kyūbei, becoming one of Japan’s leading sculptors. Following the sudden death of the sixth Rokubey in 1980, he assumed the name of the seventh and resumed ceramic production. His mature works are based on slab construction, integrating apertures, cuts, and incisions, with restrained surface treatment that emphasizes the movement of clay during firing. In this way, the expressive qualities inherent in clay—so distinct from the reticence of metal—are allowed to emerge directly as form.
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