The Language of Glaze: Shimizu Uichi at 100
A centenary exhibition of rare works by the celebrated Japanese ceramic master
11 June – 11 September 2026, Carpenters Workshop Gallery, London
deBiousse&West, in collaboration with Carpenters Workshop Gallery, presents The Language of Glaze: Shimizu Uichi at 100, a landmark exhibition marking the centenary of one of the most significant ceramic artists of the twentieth century.
Bringing together a rare and previously unseen group of works, the exhibition offers a unique encounter with the quiet authority of Shimizu’s practice. An oeuvre in which form, fire and glaze are brought into a state of exacting balance. Drawn from a remarkable body of material assembled over decades, the works reveal the disciplined clarity that defines Shimizu’s achievement: vessels of great restraint whose surfaces register the complex dialogue between material, process and time.
For Shimizu Uichi, glaze was not merely a decorative skin but the primary field of artistic inquiry. Through subtle modulation of surface, deep iron blacks, luminous whites, and the controlled unpredictability of the kiln, his works articulate a language in which matter itself becomes expressive. Each vessel emerges as a complete and autonomous form, its presence defined as much by silence and restraint as by material intensity.
The works included in this exhibition have never before been publicly exhibited, having remained within the artist’s family collection and preserved in the workshop where they were originally created. As such, the exhibition marks not only a centenary, but a rare moment in which the legacy of a Living National Treasure is revealed with unusual breadth and clarity.
Two Iron-Glazed Jars. c.1976
Porcelain Line Jar. c.1980
Yellow Horai Jar. c.1979
Light Green Glazed Jar. 1978-1980
Pale Blue Glazed Vase. 1984
