Artist:Okabe Mineo
Medium: Stoneware with oribe glaze
Geograhical Locations:
Dates:ca. 1970
Dimensions: 8 11/16 × 4 5/16 in. (22 × 11 cm)
Collections:
Accession Number: 2020.1.2
Image: CUR.2020.1.2_side1_edited.jpg,
Catalogue Description: Bottle-shaped flower vase (too large to serve as a sake server) with round base flaring outward to rounded shoulders, a narrow neck and flaring lip. The entire outer surface is covered with deep, irregular, horizontal incisions as well as irregular circular incisions, some of them overlapping, forming a ring at the center. Glazed with a deep green oribe glaze that catches on the incised shapes for an irregular surface. Okabe Mineo was a major figure in post-war Japanese ceramics. Trained in Seto ware in a ceramics-making family (his father was Kato Tokuro, his brother Kato Shigetaka), Okabe had a troubled relationship with his father that in some sense freed him to work in many historic and regional styles of pottery, including Oribe (as seen in this object) as well as later experimental work with celadon glazes. His work typically employs traditional media and firing techniques to make modern and unexpected forms. Accompanied by a traditional wood storage box, signed and sealed by the artist.