Shinobu Kawase has dedicated his career of nearly 50 years to celadon. Like so many other seiji potters, it was an encounter with Song dynasty celadons that triggered his obsession. But unlike other artists, Kawase - from the very start - mapped out his life-long dedication to arguably the most difficult type of ceramic to master.

As Bonnie Lee details in her excellent essay from 2021, Kawase chose to borrow the structure of classic Chinese poetry to divide his practice into 4 periods: Introduction, Development, Turn, and Conclusion. His Introduction phase of the 1970’s and early 1980’s focused on absorbing, digesting, and paying tribute to the classic forms and glazes of Song dynasty celadons. Then, during his subsequent Development period of the 1980’s and 1990’s, Kawase began to play with the form, adding abstracted references to nature, such as water, birds, and even stingrays.

This very large bowl strikes me as a beautiful example that straddles his Introduction and Development periods. With its luminous blue-green glaze, classic warm crazing, and formal foot and fully rounded body, this bowl recalls the elegance of Song examples. However, its classic form is interrupted as the rim seems to spread open and ripple with movement. The lip peaks and dips like the swells on the ocean or the curves of a flower.

In a sense, Kawase’s bowl embodies his career’s first creative transition. It’s as though you can see a restless mind at play, as he breaks with what came before and takes flight into his next phase.

Comes with the signed, stamped, and titled wood box, and stamped wrapping cloth.