坂本茂木 大皿|Large Cream and Brown Plate

Sakamoto Shigeki

1991 · Stoneware, Onta ware · Asian Art

Sakamoto Shigeki hosted Bernard Leach and Yanagi Sōetsu when they "discovered" the pottery village of Onta and spent time there in the 1960s, documenting and writing about its Mingei pottery. This tiny village sits deep in a forest in Oita Prefecture (northwest of Tokyo). Eleven families have been making traditional folk pottery there for the past 300 years. In 1995 the Japanese government declared the entire village to be an Intangible Cultural Property. A Korean potter named Sakamoto was among the founders of the Onta kiln in the mid-17th century, not long after Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536–1598) invaded Korea and seized craftsmen during the "pottery wars" (1592–1596). Slipware pottery is characterized by its primary decorating process of placing dipping, painting, or splashing slip onto the leather-hard clay vessels before firing. That tradition has been continued on this large, cream and brown Onta ware plate.

Artist

Sakamoto Shigeki

Date

1991

Medium

Stoneware, Onta ware

Culture

Japan

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

Gift of Halsey and Alice North, 2017