VERY large Oni Shino Yohen Tsubo by Tsukigata Nahiko

One of a kind and absolutely rare: Very large Oni Shino Yohen Tsubo by Tsukigata Nahiko, enclosed in its originally signed double wooden box. A true masterpiece, 8,3 kg heavy, 28 cm high with a maximum circumference of 88 cm, imagine that.

Tsukigata Nahiko (1923-2006) actually needs no introduction. He was not only an accomplished ceramic artist, but also a musician, painter, calligrapher and sculptor.

Tsukigata was born in Niigata prefecture, he studied at the Waseda University in 1941 when he was summarily drafted into the Army. After the war he attended the Arts course of Nippon Daigaku University and was struck by the works of Living National Treasure Arakawa Toyozo, to whom he apprenticed in the arts of Shino. He took his mentors work to a new level, spectacular and breathtaking. Like all art, his was alive and always evolving. Starting with the replication and research of Momoyama techniques to the culmination of his efforts in Oni-shino, Nahiko has taken Shino beyond all others. The way he took was not easy, for the first 15 years he worked for a ballet school, spent time as a recluse priest at Myoanji temple, and wandered the country playing the shakuhachi.

That time was a period of great change in Japan, starvation was rampant immediately after the war and supporting oneself through the little known art of Shino-yaki was difficult. But Tsukigata persevered, along with Toyozo, Kato Juuemon, Kato Kohei and others, to bring Shino to the forefront of ceramic arts.

Heavily prized domestically and abroad in his lifetime and exhibited in a lot of great museums, his low output and unique quality make his work a must have for collectors.

This spectacular Tsubo is obviously the largest one of Tsukigata's work - comparing to ordinary antique or contemporary Tsubos this is a giant example.