Artist Represented in Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art Collection, Tochigi Prefecture Arts Festival Award Winner, Matsubara Naoyuki (松原直之), Yunomi Teacup, Japanese-Style Old Fashioned Glass, Aged Sake Vessel, Studied Under Yagi Kazuo and Kimura Ichiro #528

This yunomi teacup is the work of Matsubara Naoyuki (松原直之, 1938–2024), a potter who studied under both Kimura Ichiro, whom the Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art presented in an exhibition titled "The Modernist of Mashiko," and Yagi Kazuo, a central figure of Sodeisha who led postwar avant-garde ceramics. In 1958 Matsubara visited Yagi in Kyoto carrying a business card entrusted by Kimura, and served for about three years as a live-in apprentice, assisting with the work. After returning to Mashiko, Matsubara built the Yatake Kiln at Uchimachi, Mashiko, in 1961, and moved the kiln to Kitanaka, Mashiko, in 1974. An essay by a curator of the Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art credits Matsubara with completing, after the return home, a distinctive namishiro glaze as a personal means of expression rather than an imitation of Hamada Shoji. Matsubara received the Arts Festival Award in the crafts division of the Tochigi Prefecture Arts Festival in 1967 and an Encouragement Award at the International Ceramic Art Exhibition in 1990. The 2005 work "Black Pottery: Crested Kingfisher" (黒陶 山翡翠) is in the collection of the Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art and was also shown in the museum's 2023 exhibition "30th Anniversary: 1958– The Dawn of Individual Ceramics in Mashiko." The lid of the accompanying artist-signed box (tomobako) bears the inscription "Yunomi" with the maker's signature and a red seal, and a leaflet in which the teacher, Kimura Ichiro, introduces the maker is included. Because the career summary in the leaflet runs up to the 1974 move of the kiln to Kitanaka, this piece is estimated to date from 1974 or later.

Looking closely at the design, the form is a cylinder with horizontal steps circling the body, narrowing at the waist before joining the foot ring. Over the whitish base glaze, arcing leaf-like motifs in brown brushwork are arranged around the body. Each is a single stroke, thick where the brush enters and tapering to a fine point as it lifts; where the pigment pools thickly it turns blackish brown, and at the thin edges a reddish brown. On some faces, stem-like vertical lines combine with the leaf motifs, and amber dots and fine runs are scattered between them. The waist has a finely roughened glaze surface, and the bare clay shows on the foot rim. Inside the foot ring, the glaze has crawled and gathered into island-like shapes, in a scene resembling kairagi (梅花皮). These are expressions of the glaze produced by firing, not chips or cracks. The interior is covered with white glaze and retains throwing marks. The techniques for which records show Matsubara was recognized are namishiro glaze and black pottery. This piece is not black pottery, and since the box inscription names no glaze, its base glaze cannot be identified with certainty as namishiro.

We offer this cylindrical piece, about 9.5 cm high with a mouth diameter of about 8.2 cm, as a "Japanese-style rocks glass (vessel for aged spirits)" for enjoying aged sake, matured spirits, whisky and the like over ice.

[An Introduction by the Teacher, Kimura Ichiro: "On Matsubara Naoyuki"]

Matsubara Naoyuki is a mid-career artist among the potters of Mashiko, with nearly twenty years in ceramics. In 1967 Matsubara received the Arts Festival Award in the crafts division of the Tochigi Prefecture Arts Festival. Until then, belonging to no association or group and showing at no exhibitions, Matsubara worked at an unhurried pace, at times indulging in poetic feeling, and the works carry something of a vast, boundless dignity. At first glance nothing in them is unusual or meant to astonish, yet the longer one looks, the more their honest "reach" and "largeness" speak of Matsubara as a person.

The artistic question now is how to bring this work to completion, and I am one of those watching with particular anticipation. Matsubara, a leading pupil of Yagi Kazuo, the master of the avant-garde in contemporary ceramics, studied for many years in Kyoto, and is, so to speak, the only potter in Mashiko trained in the world of modern craft. I cannot help but look forward to the day when the lines of the new and the old will merge.

I believe that Matsubara is an artist who can accomplish this work.

Kimura Ichiro (木村一郎, 1915–1978)

• Artist: Matsubara Naoyuki (松原直之, 1938–2024)
• Artist's Representative Career Highlights: 1956: began studying under Kimura Ichiro. From 1958: studied under Yagi Kazuo in Kyoto (about three years as a live-in apprentice). 1961: built the Yatake Kiln at Uchimachi, Mashiko. 1967: Tochigi Prefecture Arts Festival Award (Crafts Division). 1971: solo exhibition at Mitsukoshi Ikebukuro, Tokyo. 1974: solo exhibition at Seaman Gallery (シーマン画廊), Utsunomiya; moved the kiln to Kitanaka, Mashiko. 1990: International Ceramic Art Exhibition Encouragement Award.
• Public Collections: Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art ("Black Pottery: Crested Kingfisher," 2005)
• Production Period: Mid-to-late 1970s (estimated: the career summary in the leaflet ends in 1974, which agrees with "nearly twenty years in ceramics" in its text, and the writer, Kimura Ichiro, died in 1978)
• Item Condition: Very good (no chips, no cracks). Please regard the crazing that forms in firing, other characteristics of ceramics and the patina of age as part of the pleasure of an antique piece.
• Accessories: Artist-signed box (tomobako), leaflet
• Material: Ceramic / Pottery (Mashiko ware)
• Dimensions: Height approx. 9.5 cm, Mouth diameter approx. 8.2 cm
• Note: The items provided by our shop were produced a very long time ago and are all listed as pre-owned items. Please understand and confirm the age-related changes before considering your purchase.
• Please check the photos: We prepare every description with great care, but errors may still remain in the text. Please examine the photos carefully before purchasing. Where the photos and the description differ, please take the photos as the basis for the product information.