The Kura - Japanese Art Treasures

Robert Mangold has been working with Japanese antiques since 1995 with an emphasis on ceramics, Paintings, Armour and Buddhist furniture.

Antique Japanese Vase, Kiyomizu Rokubei V & Domoto Insho


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Directory: Archives: Regional Art: Asian: Japanese: Pre 1930: Item # 1491767

Please refer to our stock # K046 when inquiring.
The Kura
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23 Murasakino Monzen-cho
Kita-ward Kyoto 603-8216
tel.81-75-201-3497
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A vase by Kiyomizu Rokubei V featuring auspicious calligraphic characters opposite a boy staring at the moon from atop his ox decorated by Domoto Insho enclosed in the original signed wooden box. It is 22 x 15 x 37 cm (9 x 6 x 14-1/2 inches) and is in excellent condition.
Kiyomizu Rokubei V (Shimizu Kuritaro, 1875-1959) initially studied painting and decorating technique under Kono Bairei, one of the foremost painters in Japan in the Meiji era. After graduating the Kyoto Municipal Special School of Painting, he took a position under his father at the family kiln however. That same year he exhibited his first work at the National Industrial Exposition. He was a co-founder of Yutoen with his father and Asai Chu, and worked ceaselessly to promote the pottery of Kyoto. He helped to establish the Kyoto Ceramics Research Facility (Kyoto Tojiki Shikensho) at the turn of the century which would be the proving ground for many young artist of the era. Doctor Maezaki Shinya has noted that Teishitsu-Gigei-in (Imperial Art Academy Member) Seifu Yohei III also fired his acclaimed works in the Rokubei kiln in the Taisho era. Due to his father’s poor health Rokubei V took the reins unofficially in 1902, commanding the helm until assuming the name Rokubei V in 1913. It was in 1928 that Rokubei changed the reading of the family name from Shimizu to Kiyomizu and applied it retroactively to previous generations. He exhibited constantly, and garnered a great many awards. He worked to get crafts added to the National Art Exhibition (Bunten/Teiten) and served as a judge in 1927, the first year crafts were allowed. In 1937 he was designated a member of the Imperial Art Council (Teishitsu Bijutsu Inkai). Despite changes in the world around him Rokubei persevered, working in all manner of materials and styles. He retired in 1945, perhaps as exhausted as Japan was with the end of the war, or perhaps seeing that capitulation would signal a new era in need of new leaders and a new aesthetic. He passed the name Rokubei to his son and took the retirement name Rokuwa. Uncontainable he continued to create pottery under that name until his death in 1959. His influence is so pervasive he was voted one of the most important potters of the modern era by Honoho magazine, the preeminent quarterly devoted to Japanese pottery. A multitude of works by him are held in the National Museums of Modern Art, both in Tokyo and Kyoto, the Kyoto Kyocera Museum, The Kyoto Hakubutsukan Museum and the Philadelphia Art Museum among others.
Domoto Insho (b. 1891) was a Kyoto artist, trained in the traditional Shijo manner, but not one to be bound by its rigidity. He studied at the Kyoto Municipal School of Fine Arts, and under the important artist Nishiyama Suishi. Consistently exhibitied at the large National exhibitions (Nitten, Bunten) while fighting for greater acceptance of artworks. He traveled to Europe in 1952, and was appointed a member of the Japan Art Academy and winner of the Imperial Fine Arts Academy Prize, ultimately receiving the Order of Cultural Merit (highest prize allocated to a civilian in Japan). His works moved steadily toward the abstract, as we will see with the next listing. A true Jiyu-gakka, he refused to be defined by any school and was incredibly influential in his time and perhaps even more so after. His works are held in the collection of many internationally renowned institutions including the Museum of Fine Art, Boston, Tokyo National Museum and Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art. And in fact there is a museum dedicated to him in Kyoto, the Domoto Insho Museum.