Event Navigation
Japan Now: Female Masters
The Gardiner Museum brings together people of all ages and backgrounds through the shared values of creativity, wonder, and community that clay and ceramic traditions inspire.
- This event has passed.
Japan Now: Female Masters
September 7, 2018 - January 13, 2019
Lobby Display
Today, Japanese clay art is experiencing one of the richest and most diverse periods in its long history. Throughout 2018, three lobby displays, curated by Joan B. Mirviss, an authority on Japanese ceramics and a New York City gallery owner for 40 years, will feature the work of ground-breaking Japanese ceramists who stand on the world stage, boldly asserting their independence, creativity, and technical genius.
For centuries in Japan, women were excluded from the male-dominated landscape of ceramic arts, restricted from taking apprenticeships, making ceramic vessels, or even participating in the firing process. However, with the advent of university programs and professional ceramic schools throughout Japan in the postwar era, women have been able to move past these gender-specific boundaries. Today, Japanese female masters of clay are the equals of their male contemporaries, as luminaries and independent creative talents.
Japan Now: Female Masters showcases the brilliant work of some of the most celebrated contemporary female ceramists of Japan. With their own sensibilities and without ties to specific regional or familial ceramic traditions, these artists have raised their nation’s ceramic arts to an entirely new level.
January 12 – April 22
Form + Function
June 7 – September 2
Surface
September 7 – January 13
Female Masters
Header image: Fujikasa Satoko, Hiten; Seraphim, 2016. Stoneware with white slip glaze. 23 1/4 x 25 1/8 x 17 3/4 in. On loan from the Diana Reitberger Collection
