Featured Exhibition: Iridescent Sparkles of Tenmoku – Works by KIMURA Moriyasu Commemorating the gift to the museum

Saturday, December 21, 2019～Sunday, April 12, 2020

Mr. KIMURA Moriyasu was born in 1935 in Gojozaka, Kyoto. He grew up in a pottery family — his father, Kimura Shigeji (1895-1971) was a painter of Kyo-yaki (Kyoto ware) and his two elder brothers, Mr. Kimura Morikazu (1921-2015) and Mr. Kimura Morinobu (1932- ) are both artist potters. An established potter known for his tenmoku works, Moriyasu was first inspired by the National Treasure “yuteki (oil spot) tenmoku tea bowl” housed in our museum, which he encountered soon after he graduated from high school’s ceramics department. After learning the basics of ceramic art at the Kyoto Municipal Industrial Arts Research Institute, he studied under his eldest brother Morikazu, making his first step towards becoming a tenmoku-ware artist. Since then, he has been producing tenmoku wares with unique tones and glaze textures for over 60 years, many of which are housed in museums overseas as well as in Japan. Now at the age of 84, Moriyasu’s challenge never stops, literally devoting his whole life to tenmoku.
We are fortunate to be able to hold this exhibition commemorating a generous gift of 25 tenmoku works by Mr. Kimura Moriyasu (1935- ) from a private collector living in Kyoto, who wishes to remain anonymous. We hope the visitors can enjoy the “sparkles” of these unique works reminiscent of the cosmos, delivering a sense of nature and life.
Finally, we would like to express our heartfelt thanks to this anonymous collector for donating such valuable works to our museum.

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Examples of Objects on Display