Robert Yellin is an American Japanese ceramics specialist who has regularly written for several publications. Yellin currently resides in Japan where he has been living since 1984. [1] He owns and runs Robert Yellin Yakimono Gallery in Kyoto in addition to an informational website and online Japanese ceramic art gallery. [2] Yellin previously wrote the "Ceramic Scene" column for The Japan Times for 10 years. [2] [3] He has written in the past for Daruma Magazine , Asian Arts, Winds Magazine, among others. [2] [4] He previously wrote for the quarterly Japanese ceramics magazine Honoho Geijutsu. [5] Yellin wrote Yakimono Sanka published by Kogei Shuppan, a book about sake utensils which was later translated into English under the title Ode to Pottery, Sake Cups and Flasks. [2]
In 2012 Yellin was invited to host a segment on Japanese artisans as part of a TV series created by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan titled "Japan: Fascinating Diversity". The goal of the series was to help viewers around the globe rediscover the appeal of Japan. [6]
Since 2012, Yellin has been a guest lecturer on specialty Ceramics Tours conducted by Esprit Travel & Tours. He shares his knowledge and passion for Japanese ceramics through visits to artists' studios and museum throughout Japan.
The Japan Times is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by The Japan Times, Ltd., a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc. It is headquartered in the Kioicho Building in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo.
Peter Voulkos was an American artist of Greek descent. He is known for his abstract expressionist ceramic sculptures, which crossed the traditional divide between ceramic crafts and fine art. He established the ceramics department at the Los Angeles County Art Institute and at UC Berkeley.
Joe Earle is an author and curator. He was chair of the Asia, Oceania, and Africa department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He served as Vice President and Director for the Japan Society Gallery at Japan Society from 2007 to 2011.
Milton Moon AM was an Australian potter. He studied in many countries, as a recipient of a Foundation Winston Churchill Fellowship and also as a Myer Foundation Geijutsu Fellow.
Robert Whiting is a best-selling author and journalist who has written several books on contemporary Japanese culture - which include topics such as baseball and American gangsters operating in Japan. He was born in New Jersey, grew up in Eureka, California and graduated from Sophia University in Tokyo. He has lived in Japan for more than three decades since he first arrived there in 1962, while serving in the U.S. Air Force. He divides his time between homes in Tokyo and California.
A ceramics museum is a museum wholly or largely devoted to ceramics, usually ceramic art. Its collections may also include glass and enamel, but typically concentrate on pottery, including porcelain. Most national collections are in a more general museum covering all of the arts, or just the decorative arts. However, there are a number of specialized ceramics museums, with some focusing on the ceramics of just one country, region or manufacturer. Others have international collections, which may be centered on ceramics from Europe or East Asia or have a more global emphasis.
The Aberystwyth University Ceramic Collection & Archive is located in Aberystwyth, Wales. It holds one of the major collections of studio ceramics in Britain and is particularly noted for its studio pottery of the period 1920–1940. The permanent and temporary exhibitions from the collection are on display in the Ceramic Gallery in Aberystwyth Arts Centre and the archive office is located in the School of Art, Aberystwyth University. The Ceramic Bulletin is produced every two years by the university and it features news of activities including exhibitions, new acquisitions, research, awards and grants.
Sōdeisha, the “Crawling through Mud Association,” was founded by Kazuo Yagi and led by Yagi and two other founding members, Hikaru Yamada and Suzuki Osamu. Sodeisha was formed in opposition to the Mingei or folk-craft movement that was the dominant ceramic style and philosophy in mid-20th century Japan, and also in reaction to the aesthetic of rusticity associated with the tea ceremony inspired Shino and Bizen ceramics of the Momoyama Revival pottery of artists such as Kaneshige Toyo and Arakawa Toyozu. Sodeisha had nearly 40 members in 1964 and was disbanded in 1998.
Stephen Knapp was an American artist best known for his use of the medium of lightpainting. A native of Worcester, Massachusetts, he gained an international reputation for large-scale works of art held in museums, public, corporate, and private collections, which are executed in media as diverse as light, kiln-formed glass, metal, stone, mosaic, and ceramic.
Masahiro Mori was a Japanese ceramic designer born in Saga Prefecture, Japan. The well known "G-type Soy Sauce Bottle" he designed in 1958 won the 1st Good Design Award in 1960 and its production and sales have continued until today. He won the Good Design Award more than 110 times in his life. In describing his design philosophy, he stated, "My pleasure as a designer is to conceive of forms for daily use, and to create pieces for production in the factory, so that many people can appreciate and enjoy using them". He worked to design ceramic dishes suitable for the Japanese lifestyle in post-World War II.
Kiyomizu Rokubei (清水六兵衛) is the name bestowed on the head of the Kyoto-based Kiyomizu family of ceramists. With over 240 years of history, the studio is now into its eighth generation. It is currently headed by contemporary ceramist and sculptor Rokubei VIII. The family was influential in the development and survival of Kyō ware.
Unit 88-9 is a glazed stoneware sculpture by contemporary Japanese potter and sculptor Kiyomizu Masahiro, also known by the professional art-name Kiyomizu Rokubei VIII. This piece is held in the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada.
Azuma Morisaki was a Japanese film director and screenwriter.
Jack Doherty is a Northern Irish studio potter and author. He is perhaps best known for his vessels made of soda-fired porcelain. He has been featured in a number of books, and his work has been exhibited widely in both Europe and North America. Articles of his have appeared in various pottery journals and he has been Chair of the Craft Potters Association.
Kitamura Junko is a Japanese ceramic artist. Examples of her work are in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Brooklyn Museum, the British Museum, the Museum of Fine Art, Boston, and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian. She has won prizes for her work from the Siga Prefecture Art Exhibition in 1983, the Kyoto Art and Crafts Exhibition in 1984 and 1985, and the World Triennial Exhibition of Small Ceramics in Zagreb, Croatia in 1997. Kitamura completed her MFA at the Kyoto City University of Art. She is married to artist Yo Akiyama, and was the student of two prominent Japanese artists: Suzuki Osamu and Kondo Yutaka.
Masako Shirasu was a Japanese author and collector of fine arts. Her husband was the diplomat Jirō Shirasu.
Tokuda Yasokichi I was a Japanese potter. He was born near present day Kaga City in the Ishikawa Prefecture. The area was made famous by the Kutani mines, the source of the clays utilized to make kutani ware.
Dick Lehman is an American ceramics artist based in Indiana. Dozens of articles and photos featuring his techniques and insights have appeared in periodicals and books on ceramic art since 1985, including 34 articles in U.S.-published Ceramics Monthly, the largest circulating magazine in the field, plus articles in 11 other international periodicals.
Osamu Suzuki (1926-2001) was a Japanese ceramicist and one of the co-founders of the artist group Sōdeisha, a Japanese avant-garde ceramics movement that arose following the end of the Second World War and served as a counter to the traditional forms and styles in modern Japanese ceramics, such as Mingei. Working in both iron-rich stoneware and porcelain, Suzuki developed his style considerably over the course of his career, beginning with functional vessels in his early work, and spanning to fully sculptural works in the latter half of his career. Suzuki has been described by The Japan Times as "one of Japan's most important ceramic artists of the 20th century."
Jun Nishida was a Japanese ceramicist. He is best known for his massive conceptual pottery pieces, which experiment with the material capacities of clay and the imaginative forms that ceramics could take amid the intense thermochemical conditions of the kiln. Throughout his brief yet productive career, Nishida pushed the boundaries of contemporary ceramics, challenging conventions of scale, abstraction, and method to produce a radically new visual language of pottery.