MASTER PIECES
ELEVEN MODERN JAPANESE CERAMICISTS
20 October – 19 December 2026, Le Marais 54 Rue De La Verrerie 75004 Paris
MASTER PIECES brings together sixteen exceptional works by eleven of the most important figures in Japanese ceramics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Spanning a hundred years of practice, the exhibition offers a rare opportunity to encounter artists of such distinction together, through works seldom seen outside Japan.
Rosanjin's climbing kiln in 1939
Rosanjin grilling Yakitori
There is no single style that unites these artists. Each developed a distinctive language through clay, drawing in different ways on centuries of Japanese ceramic tradition while pushing the medium towards something deeply personal. For some, tradition became a foundation for discovery; for others, it was something to question, reshape or move beyond. What connects them is an uncompromising pursuit of what clay might make possible.
KANESHIGE TŌYŌ. Bizen Square Tea Bowl 備前四方茶盌, c.1966
KAMODA SHŌJI. Square Stoneware Bottle 炻器角瓶, 1969
OKABE MINEO. Yōhen Beishoku Tea Bowl 窯変 米色 瓷碗, 1974
The works have been selected for their quality, rarity and the insight they offer into each artist’s practice. Seen together, they reveal the extraordinary range of Japanese ceramics over the past century, from the revival and transformation of historic techniques to radically individual approaches to form, surface, pattern and material.
Detail of Jar, “Snow, Moon, Flower”, Kitaōji Rosanjin, c. 1950s.
Okabe Mineo at a studio in Hiradobashi, 1965. © Sadao Ishii.
Kamoda Shōji at his home in Mashiko, 1971. Photograph by Aoki Kōichi. Courtesy of Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art.