Toshiko Takaezu: Interplay

48 Walker St I March 20 - April 20, 2024

  • Interplay features a selection of rare works by the American master ceramicist Toshiko Takaezu (b. 1922, Pepeekeo, Hawaii - d. 2011, Honolulu, Hawaii). Takaezu’s ceramics not only demonstrate her masterful capabilities in crafting form through clay, but also manage to surpass classification, hovering between pottery, sculpture and painting; revealing exceptional control of color in a medium that often is at the whim of the kiln. 


    This focused exhibition is presented on the occasion of the first nationally touring retrospective of Takaezu’s work in over twenty years, opening on March 20, 2024 at The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum.

  • “One of the best things about clay is that I can be completely free and honest with it. And clay responds to me. The clay is alive and responsive to every touch and feeling. When I make it into a form, it is alive, and even when it’s dry, it is still breathing! I can feel the response in my hands, and I don’t have to force the clay.  The whole process is an interplay between the clay and myself, and often the clay has much to say.” - Toshiko Takaezu

  • Toshiko Takaezu evolved a discrete series of globular forms that she called Moons. From the early 70s on, these were formed from two halves in molds. Their surfaces may be smooth, shiny, or matte, often featuring a multitude of colored glazes. Her moons recall heavenly bodies and planetary forms. In homage to its stunning exterior, Takaezu titled this work Best Moon, 1989. It features washes of ochre, terracotta red, greens and browns and bold strokes of inky black glaze swooping over its curved surface.

  • Mercer, 1983, and Untitled, ca. 1990s, are rare anagama-fired closed forms. Anagama is an ancient Japanese firing method in which...
    Mercer, 1983 (detail)
    Mercer, 1983, and Untitled, ca. 1990s, are rare anagama-fired closed forms. Anagama is an ancient Japanese firing method in which the kiln is fueled with firewood continuously. The burnt wood produces ash and volatile salts that often settle on the clay during firing, causing a natural ash glaze. Mercer exhibits a varied textural surface, differing from Takaezu’s classically smooth works. A fiery red hue emanates from the base of the piece, while blue and purple subtly shifts into gray and earth tones. Untitled is rendered in a volcanic palette, with inky black drips along its surface.
  • Her palette often references colors seen in nature – particularly from her native Hawaii – like ochre, black, white, brown, soft grays and varying shades of blue. Applications of yellow, pink, orange and greens were often atmospheric and suggestive of foggy landscapes and ink paintings. Her series Ocean’s Edge recalls the effects of waves crashing into one another through her superimposition of glazes in deep blues and turquoise, rich purple and inky blacks.
  • Spotlight, Frieze London, 2023
  • Born in Pepeekeo, Hawaii in 1922 to Japanese immigrant parents, Takaezu studied ceramics first with Claude Horan, the founder of...
    Toshiko throwing a closed form at the Penland School of Crafts, North Carolina. Photo credit: Evon Streetman. Courtesy of The Family of Toshiko Takaezu.

    Born in Pepeekeo, Hawaii in 1922 to Japanese immigrant parents, Takaezu studied ceramics first with Claude Horan, the founder of the ceramics program at the University of Hawaii, and later with the influential Finnish-American ceramicist Maija Grotell at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. Takaezu was a devoted maker and art educator, teaching first at the Cleveland Institute of Art and then at Princeton University, until her retirement in 1992. She lived and worked on a lush property in rural New Jersey, establishing a steady studio practice and firing her work on site with the aid of apprentices. 

     

    Throughout the artist’s lifetime, her work was exhibited widely in the United States and Japan, including a solo exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2004) and a retrospective at the National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, Japan (1995). Takaezu was the recipient of a McInerny Foundation Grant (1952), Tiffany Foundation Grant (1964), National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1980), among others. Takaezu received honorary doctorate degrees from Lewis and Clark College (1987), Moore College of Art and Design (1992), University of Hawaii (1993), Princeton University (1996), and Skidmore College (2004). Her work is represented in collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, DeYoung/Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Honolulu Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. 


    Recent exhibitions include the 2022 edition of the Venice Biennale, The Milk of Dreams curated by Cecilia Alemani. Opening on March 20, 2024, The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum will host the first touring retrospective of Takaezu’s work in twenty years. The exhibition will be accompanied by a new monograph published in association with Yale University Press and will travel to the Cranbrook Art Museum (2024–25), the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2025), and the Honolulu Museum of Art (2026). A complementary large-scale installation is on view at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston through September 29, 2024.

  • SOURCES: 

    Peter Held, “In the language of silence, The Art of Toshiko Takaezu” 2010, published by The Toshiko Takaezu Foundation, New York. 

     

    John Perreault, “Toshiko Takaezu: Truth In Clay,” from Toshiko Takaezu: Heaven and Earth published on the occasion of the exhibition of her multipart installation Star Series, at the Racine Art Museum, Racine, Wisconsin, from September 2005 - January 8, 2006. 


    Toshiko Takaezu Foundation

  • Inquiry