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Artist: Toshiko Takaezu
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  • About
  • Items (618)
  • Auctions (75)

Toshiko Takaezu
1922-2011

We have long recognized the importance of Toshiko Takaezu's oeuvre and set the auction record for her work in 2023. Our houses have handled over 500 of her masterful creations, achieving results that have set new benchmark prices for the artist and demonstrated the confidence buyers have in our company.

Auction Results Toshiko Takaezu

Toshiko Takaezu, Moon

Toshiko Takaezu

Moon

estimate: $20,000–30,000

result: $541,800

Toshiko Takaezu, Spring Moon (with rattle)

Toshiko Takaezu

Spring Moon (with rattle)

estimate: $70,000–90,000

result: $176,400

Toshiko Takaezu, Moon (with rattle)

Toshiko Takaezu

Moon (with rattle)

estimate: $70,000–90,000

result: $163,800

Toshiko Takaezu, Makaha Blue

Toshiko Takaezu

Makaha Blue

estimate: $40,000–50,000

result: $126,000

An artist is a poet in his or her own medium. And when an artist produces a good piece, that work has mystery, an unsaid quality; it is alive.

Toshiko Takaezu

Toshiko Takaezu 1922–2011

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Toshiko Takaezu, distinguished American ceramic artist and teacher, was born in Hawaii in 1922. She is celebrated as a driving force in the development of the modern ceramic art philosophy that seeks to elevate the product of a potter’s craft from utilitarian vessel to fine art.

The sixth of eleven children, Toshiko Takaezu (pronounced Toe-SHEE-ko Taka-YAY-zoo) was the daughter of Japanese immigrants who emigrated from Okinawa to Pekeekeo, Hawaii. Her art training began in the early 1940s with Saturday painting classes at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. During these early years, she worked with commercial ceramic firms producing press mold pieces. It was through this work that she met Claude Horan, founder of the ceramics program at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. At Horan’s encouragement, Takaezu enrolled at the University – the first step in her formal artistic training.

In 1951, Takaezu was accepted to the prestigious Cranbrook Academy of the Arts in Bloomfield Hills, MI. In her third year, she accepted the position of teaching assistant to Finnish ceramic artist Maija Grotell. An excellent teacher with a knack for experimenting with glazes, Grotell had a profound influence on Takaezu’s work and encouraged her to find her own voice as an artist. After graduating, she went abroad in 1955 to explore her Japanese heritage, including the study of the tea ceremony and Zen Buddhism. While there, she studied the techniques and aesthetics of renowned artists Toyo Kaneshige and Yagi Kazuo, among others.

Takaezu’s clay pots evolved from functional vessels to abstract sculptural “forms” (as she called her works). An affinity for painting led the artist to create her first “closed form” works, as these vessels provided a larger surface on which to apply glaze. This became her signature: vessels with nearly closed-off tops, just open enough to allow gasses to escape during the firing process. Takaezu also began to add “rattles” to her pieces while they were still wet on the wheel before enclosing them completely. She would wrap each in a bit of newspaper first, which she thought of as “sending a message” to the inner space of the piece as she dropped it in. After the piece was fired, and one picked it up, it was Takaezu’s intention to give the handler an unexpected sensory experience.

Throughout her career, Takaezu continued to experiment. She threw squat ball-shaped vessels that she called “moon pots”; vertical forms, and ceramic “tree trunks”. In many of her later works, the artist closed the top of her vessels, removing the vent from view by placing it at the bottom of the form. Takaezu also experimented with the application of glazes, brushing free-hand and creating layers by employing a drip or spray method while she moved around the piece, producing painterly, abstract and serendipitous results. Further, she embraced the element of chance in the firing and believed her kiln was an important influence in the creation of the work, with a will or mind of its own that she couldn’t control and even liked to be surprised by.

Takaezu was a renowned teacher who worked in academia throughout her life, at Cranbrook Academy in Michigan, the University of Wisconsin, the Cleveland Institute of Art, and Princeton University, where she taught until her retirement in 1992. She approached art as she approached life, with a reverence for the natural world. For her, the practice of creating clay vessels was closely tied to everyday life: “In my life I see no difference between making pots, cooking, and growing vegetables,” Takaezu once said, “They are all so related… I get so much joy from working in clay, and it gives me many answers in my life.”

Learn More: Films & Videos

Potters of the USA, Part II (1969)

Artists of Hawai'i, Show #8 (1984)

Toshiko Takaezu: Portrait of an Artist (1993)

Toshiko Takaezu: In the Stars (2006)

An Interview with Toshiko Takaezu (2009)

Remembering Toshiko (2011)

A Personal Process (2018)

Upcoming Lots Toshiko Takaezu

Toshiko Takaezu, Large Closed Form (with rattle)

155 Toshiko Takaezu

Large Closed Form (with rattle)

estimate: $30,000–50,000

current bid: $20,000 1 bid

Post War & Contemporary Ceramics, 19 Jun 2025
Toshiko Takaezu, Closed Form (with rattle)

156 Toshiko Takaezu

Closed Form (with rattle)

estimate: $8,000–10,000

current bid: $7,000 2 bids

Post War & Contemporary Ceramics, 19 Jun 2025
Toshiko Takaezu, Bowl

157 Toshiko Takaezu

Bowl

estimate: $1,500–2,000

current bid: $1,200 2 bids

Post War & Contemporary Ceramics, 19 Jun 2025
Toshiko Takaezu, Closed Form (with rattle)

158 Toshiko Takaezu

Closed Form (with rattle)

estimate: $3,500–4,500

current bid: $7,000 5 bids

Post War & Contemporary Ceramics, 19 Jun 2025

Additional Resources

Toshiko Takaezu Foundation

Oral History Interview (Archive of American Art)

Toshiko Takaezu: The Earth in Bloom

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