To mark The Winter Show's triumphant return to the Park Avenue Armory, Joan B Mirviss LTD is delighted to present 10 x 10 Past and Present: Japanese Masters of Ceramics. The range of technical skills, innovative approaches to clay, and the sheer depth of artistic talent exhibited in the work by Japanese ceramic masters, will be on full display. These featured artists demonstrate a mastery of the medium that confirm Japanese clay art's position as the most varied and exciting anywhere in the world today. 10 x 10 is also a celebration of the gallery's longtime mission to bridge historic and contemporary Japanese fine art and place them in fascinating conversations – a mission it has successfully achieved at The Winter Show for over forty years and counting. For our next Winter Show exhibition at the Park Avenue Armory in January, Joan B Mirviss LTD features not only the astonishing scope and quality of the best of the best of Japanese ceramics, but also highlights its surprising legacies from the past and into the 21st century.

Current ceramic masters have demonstrated that their artistic originality can be built upon the 20th century's enormous legacy. Each living master is in dialogue with past masters, whether as former teachers, fathers and grandfathers, or as venerated practitioners of a specific style or technique. The resulting work, however, points as much toward the future as it looks towards the past. Kaneta Masanao (b. 1953), an eighth-generation Hagi potter, has expanded beyond the tradition of his ancestry to create a more sculptural oeuvre. Kawase Shinobu (b. 1950), also from a multi-generational pottery family, stepped outside his patrimony to embrace celadon and has brought the classical tradition to its absolute pinnacle in the contemporary era. Current Living National Treasures on view include Suzuki Osamu (b. 1934) for Shino ware, and Isezaki Jun (b. 1936) for Bizen ware, both of whom have taken the ceramic traditions of their families into the 21st century.

Many current masters have forged different paths that only became possible in the contemporary era. They have studied and lived abroad, such as Kondō Takahiro (b. 1958) in Scotland, who completely transformed his family's sometsuke (blue-and-white porcelain) tradition, or Katsumata Chieko (b. 1950) and Ogawa Machiko (b. 1946) in France, who are among the intrepid women artists to formally study ceramics in newly created university programs and then further their education outside Japan. Some have elected after university training to operate outside of traditional ceramic centers, such as Sakiyama Takayuki (b. 1958), who lives in a seaside village. Others have fully embraced sculpture, such as Sugiura Yasuyoshi (b. 1949) in his interpretations of botanical forms, or played with vessel and sculptural forms in inventive new ways such as Fukumoto Fuku (b. 1973).

About Joan B. Mirviss LTD
With more than forty-five years of experience, Joan B. Mirviss is a pillar in the field of Japanese art. As a dealer, scholar, curator, and advisor, she has been the driving force championing the top Japanese clay artists, who she represents exclusively, and whose works she has placed in major museums around the globe. Widely published as a highly respected expert, Mirviss has built many institutional and private collections of Japanese art. JOAN B MIRVISS LTD exhibits modern and contemporary Japanese ceramics, ukiyo-e, and Japanese paintings from its exclusive Madison Avenue location in New York City and has exhibited continuously at The Winter Antiques Show (now The Winter Show) since 1981.

For more information, please contact us at 212-799-4021 or director@mirviss.com.