Shoji Hamada was an extremely influential Japanese potter. His work and life was influenced by the principles of the Mingei movement as defined by Yanagi although he could never be called a 'Mingei Potter'. He spent sixty years diligently and continually making work. Hamada focused on making utilitarian pots which he would decorate in a wide range of techniques including wax reisit, glaze trailing, brush decoration and enamel. His decorations were lively and energetic....beautifully thought out but executed in a moment of spontaneous, creative energy. Hamada's decoration was his genius...he has been called one of the greatest abstract expressionists of the 20th century. He only signed his early work while at the Leach Pottery in the UK. he did however, sign wooden boxes to accompany many of his pieces.
Hamada studied ceramics at the Tokyo Institute of Technology finishing there in 1916. He then went and studied at the Kyoto Municipal Institute of Ceramics. While in school he met and became life long friends with Kanjro Kawai. After he was finished with his schooling , in 1920, Hamada travelled to Cornwall, England with his friend and mentor Bernard Leach, to help set up the leach pottery in St Ives, where he stayed for three years. Hamada then returned to Japan where he set up his own studio in Mashiko in 1931. Here he used local clay along with local glaze materials that he would fire in his Naborigama Kiln.
During 1936 the Japanese Folk Craft Museum was founded by Soetsu Yanagi, Kanjro Kawai and Hamada. Soetsu Yanagi is also known for being the author of "The Unknown Craftsman". This group of men which also included Leach defined the 'Mingei Movement'. Yanagi adopted many of the thoughts of William Morris who had expressed his ideas some 40 years ealier and extolled the viryues of anonymous craft work, beauty in everyday life and the small, rural workshop. The Mingeikan is the museum in Tokyo that Yanagi began and contains many of his aquisitions including a fine collection of early English slipware. Slipwares of the 18th century personified Yanagi's ideals as did the country pottery made in Korea that so influenced Hamada and Leach. Hamada became the second director of this museum in 1962. Hamada took a year long tour starting in 1952 into 1953, where he visited Europe and the United States lecturing and demonstrating.
Hamada, Leach and Yanagi in the United States, probably Hawaii, in 1952
He was sought after so highly that in 1955 the Japanese government declared him a Living National Treasure. His studio has been turned in to a museum that houses much of his personal collection of craft work from around the world alongside a selection of his own pieces.
In a lifetime of making Hamada's output was both prolific and of a very high quality. His throwing was relaxed, his decoration quite unique...he developed his own vocabulary of marks and motifs that were his signature none more so than the broken sugar cane. Hamada was truly a genius and his work can be found in most of the major museums of the world.
Sources:
Image found at www.mingeikan.or.jp/english/pottery-large-dish-by-Hamada-Shouji-D51cm-TN.jpg
"Shoji Hamada", Pucker Gallery, www.puckergallery.com/hamada.html (Jan. 30, 2010)
"Shoji Hamada", Answers.com, www.answers.com/topic/shoji-hamada (Jan. 30, 2010)
"Shoji Hamada a New Selling Exhibition", Marston Pottery, RHAYADER, Powys, www.philrogerspottery.com/hamada/hamada.pdf (Jan. 30, 2010)
