Form Pink #54

Over the years, ceramic artist Toshiko Takaezu (1922 – 2011) developed an art that merges Eastern and Western aesthetics and techniques. While visiting her parents’ native Japan in 1955, Takaezu stayed in a Zen monastery and met some of Japan’s most distinguished traditional potters. She was also struck by the culture of tea ceremony, wherein the host carefully selects vessels to create a sense of harmony and tranquility. These vessels were usually simple, handmade, and slightly asymmetrical, bearing surface evidence of its manufacture. Form Pink #54 is an earlier example of the simplified, enclosed form that became Takaezu’s hallmark. It also contains a rattle, which she typically incorporated into such vessels. Her spontaneous glazing aesthetic is also notable, created through improvised pouring and hand painting, which offsets the methodical approach she took in creating her forms.