Square form bottle with straight sides and shoulders, rising into a narrow sectioned neck and mouth with an everted lip. The wider sides depicting an abstract grid design with polychrome brushstroke lines and dots. All on a glowing brown persimmon background glaze with liberal washes of black.
Shoji Hamada (1894-1978), a Japanese potter in the 20th century and a leading figure in the ‘mingei’ folk-art movement. Having spent three years in St Ives with Bernard Leach, he returned to Japan in 1923 and travelled to potteries and stayed at Tsuboya in Okinawa Prefecture for weeks, then eventually established his workshop in Mashiko, about 100km north-east of Tokyo. Here, he built his own pottery and committed himself to using only locally sourced materials, not only in the clay he used, but also the glazes he created and the brushes, which he manufactured himself from dog hair and bamboo.
