Square Bowl

Kawai Kanjiro is one of the foremost contemporary studio potters aligned with the mingei (folk craft) movement in Japan. Kawai drew inspiration from the simple organic forms of the country wares of mainland Japan, the peasant wares of the southern Japanese island of Okinawa and Korea ceramics from the nineteenth century and earlier. In the 1940s and 1950s, he became famous for the originality of his slab-mold pieces and for their characteristic multi-color glazes. As in this example, most of his ceramics are made from Shigaraki clay, a coarse, gritty material of country ware much admired by masters of the Japanese Tea Ceremony for what they saw as its rustic honesty. Rather than painting designs with a brush, Kawai splashed or poured his vibrant glazes over the surfaces of his pieces. Dribbled on like the traces of a New York School expressionistic “action” painting of the 1950s, these splashes of rich color play against the neutral ground, bringing to mind both the painted ceramic vases of eighth-century Tang China and Okinawan folk pottery that Kawai so admired.