She has also been in several group exhibitions throughout the United States and internationally in countries including Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Japan, and Switzerland.Takaezu's work may be found in private and corporate permanent collections, as well as several public collections across the United States:Takaezu's work may also be found in the National Museum in Bangkok, Thailand.Shiro Momo (White Peach), porcelain by Toshiko Takaezu, 1992, 'Garden Piece', hand built stoneware by Toshiko Takaezu, 1973, 'Ceramic Forest - Three Trees', stoneware sculpture by Toshiko Takaezu, 1975-1980, Inspiration most often comes when I begin to work." Toshiko Takaezu studied at the University of Hawaii and at Cranbrook Academy in Michigan, where she also taught.
The ceramic forms resembled human hearts and torsos, closed cylindrical forms, and huge spheres she called “moons.” Before closing the forms, she dropped a bead of clay wrapped in paper inside, so that the pieces would rattle when moved. Express written permission is needed before any reproduction or use of this content takes place.
Takaezu’s works have been likened to abstract expressionist paintings on clay.
When she developed her signature “closed form” after sealing her pots, she found her identity as an artist.
Photo credit : Mario GallucciTakaezu’s interest in the creative potential of fiber started at Cranbrook Academy where she studied weaving with Marianne Strengell. Through a continuous reductive process of experimentation involving refining and simplification of contours, surfaces and proportions, Takaezu arrived at the form which has become distinctly, unmistakable her own expression – a rounded, “closed form” with a vestigial neck and small ductlike opening in the top to allow interior gases to escape during firing.In these works, the basic concept of the vessel is not violated, but the idea of implied/denied function is maximized, as the vessel has become simply a container of invisible space, with the eye forbidden access to the form’s interior. American artist Toshiko Takaezu (1922–2011) was born in Pepeekeo, Hawaii to Japanese immigrant parents Shinsa and Kama Takaezu. Toshiko throwing a closed form at the Penland School of Crafts, North Carolina. While Takaezu’s early reductionist experimentation of these functional wares eventually lead to her signature “closed form”, she continued to make plates and bowls during her long career which embodied her striking abstract expressionist glazing.Takaezu with one of her bronze bells, 1991 Photo credit: Thomas BrummettIn the last decades of her career, Takaezu created a series of sculptural works in bronze at the Seward Johnson Atelier in Trenton, NJ. Takaezu treated life with a sense of wholesomeness and oneness with nature; everything she did was to improve and discover herself. Provenance The artist; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2006. "I was able successfully to merge the glaze as painting to the form, so that the two - painting and form - became one total and complete piece. On the moon’s uninterrupted surfaces, Takaezu gives free rein to her expressionistic glazing. In some ways this form and the painting on it have returned me to sculpture and painting on canvas. " Installed singly or, more often in groups such as “Lava Forest” and “Tree-Man Forest”, these forms create a powerful anthropomorphic presence, like sentinels standing in mute attention and guarding the land.” Takaezu holding one of her tea bowls. Later she switched to abstract sculptures with freely applied poured and painted glazes. With truncated, flat tops or rounded ones that recall the silhouette of the artist’s classic rounded closed form, the tree forms draw their inspiration from the island of Hawaii’s Devastation Forest, the stark volcanic landscape with burned trees that stand amid the fields of broken lava which consumed them.
She also worked in textiles and took classes with designer Marianne Strengell—another Pathmakers artist—while at Cranbrook. She believed that ceramics involved self-revelation, once commenting, "In my life I see no difference between making pots, cooking and growing vegetables... there is need for me to work in clay... it gives me answers for my life." Her earliest pieces are utilitarian ware – bulbous teapots and bottle vases – but these gradually metamorphosed into more eccentric shapes, multi-chambered and multi-spouted vessels in which expressive, sculptural qualities outweigh any potential for practical use.
By quickly changing the position of the sphere as she applies glazes, Takaezu can make her strokes shift so that after firing they seem to defy gravity and struggle against the viscosity of their layering. During her five-decade-long career, the artist worked in many media including painting, … Known for her work in ceramics, Takaezu glazed her vessels like a painter. The large organic works were another way for her to experiment with glaze, color, texture, and gestural mark making over many years of her practice.Takaezu working in her studio on a hand-built pieceTakaezu paddling the top of a hand-built form.
Using the lost-wax process, many of her bronze forms were extensions of her work in clay - trees, moons, and sculptural forms. She is known for her closed ceramic forms, which make her works “non-functional” for everyday use.