For The Winter Show this January at the Park Avenue Armory, Joan B Mirviss LTD is delighted to present Reflections in Black and White: Japanese Art in Clay and Ink, a curated exhibition featuring masterpieces by modern and contemporary Japanese artists. The palette of black and white has a long and rich tradition in the history of Japanese art. Masters of ink painting, for instance, have created sweeping landscapes so rich and varied that they inspired the classic adage, “The blackness of ink contains all colors (sumi ni gosai ari).” Reflections in Black and White is a celebration of the astonishing range of expression that has been achieved by Japanese ceramists, painters, and calligraphers carrying on this aesthetic tradition of works in black and white.
Overall, the absence of color in the works selected for this exhibition invites a deeper level of engagement with the materials themselves, highlighting the subtle variations in shade and texture that they create. The soft, creamy white of the unctuous, feldspathic glaze used by Nishihata Tadashi (b. 1948) and Miwa Kazuhiko (Kyūsetsu XIII) (b. 1951) to adorn their functional vessels contrasts sharply with the bright, clean white of the kaolin-rich porcelain that create the works of contemporary sculpture by artists Fukumoto Fuku (b.1973) and Takeuchi Kōzō (b. 1977). Likewise, Koyama Fujio’s (1900-1975) black oil-spot (yuteki) tenmoku glaze features a colorfully lustrous sheen while Iguchi Daisuke’s (b. 1975) ash glaze creates an intriguingly variegated and textured black and gray surface.
The works in this exhibition also highlight cross-media conversations between artists working in clay and those working in ink. Using the traditional nerikomi technique to marbleize black and white clay together, Kondō Takahiro (b. 1958) and Takiguchi Kazuo (b. 1953) are able to achieve tonalities of black and gray in their clay bodies reminiscent of the layered ink washes employed by painters such as Araki Minol (1928-2010) and Matsubayashi Keigetsu (1876-1963). The splashed and poured glazes that decorate the surfaces of works by Koie Ryōji (1938-2020) and Kawase Shinobu (b. 1950) create the same sharp contrast that characterizes the bold brushwork of Zen calligraphers Nakahara Nantenbō (1839-1925), Jiun Sonja (1718-1804) and Torei Enji (1721-1792). Works by Suda Kokuta (1906-1990) and Hayashi Yasuo (b. 1928) demonstrate divergent approaches to abstraction in painting and ceramics.
Joan B Mirviss LTD will present Reflections in Black and White in booth E5 at The Winter Show 2026, which runs from January 23-February 1, 2026, at the Park Avenue Armory in New York, NY.