MASTER PIECES brings together sixteen exceptional works by eleven of the most important figures in Japanese ceramics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Spanning a hundred years of practice, the exhibition offers a rare opportunity to encounter artists of such distinction together, through works seldom seen outside Japan.

There is no single style that unites these artists. Each developed a distinctive language through clay, drawing in different ways on centuries of Japanese ceramic tradition while pushing the medium towards something deeply personal. For some, tradition became a foundation for discovery; for others, it was something to question, reshape or move beyond. What connects them is an uncompromising pursuit of what clay might make possible.

The works have been selected for their quality, rarity and the insight they offer into each artist’s practice. Seen together, they reveal the extraordinary range of Japanese ceramics over the past century, from the revival and transformation of historic techniques to radically individual approaches to form, surface, pattern and material.

Presented in Paris, MASTER PIECES invites visitors to encounter these artists through works of exceptional distinction, and to look more closely at the ideas, knowledge and individuality they contain. These are works that can be appreciated immediately, but whose histories and makers reward closer attention. Together, they illuminate a century of remarkable invention and artistic achievement in Japanese ceramics.

List of Artists

Kitaōji Rosanjin 北大路魯山人 (1883–1959)
Kawai Kanjirō 河井寬次郎 (1890–1966)
Ishiguro Munemaro 石黒宗麿 (1893–1968)
Arakawa Toyozō 荒川豊蔵 (1894–1985)
Shōji Hamada 濱田庄司 (1894–1978)
Kaneshige Tōyō 金重陶陽 (1896–1967)
Okabe Mineo 岡部嶺男 (1919–1990)
Matsui Kosei 松井康成 (1927–2003)
Kamoda Shōji 加守田章二 (1933–1983)
Kuriki Tatsusuke 栗木達介 (1943–2013)
Raku Jikinyū (Kichizaemon XV) 樂直入（十五代 樂吉左衞門） (b. 1949)