RAKU WARE

Raku wares were first made by Chōjirō in the Momoyama period (1573-1615) and have been produced by successive generations of the Raku family for almost 450 years. Jikinyū is the name assumed by the 15^th generation Raku Kichizaemon when he stepped down from the family headship in favour of his elder son in 2019. Since retiring, Jikinyū has continued to expand his ever-developing artistic language in the avant-garde spirit of the imayaki chawan  (lit. now-ware tea bowls) famously pioneered by Chōjirō.

The works in the exhibition are all of the yakinuki type. The term yakinuki means firing to the limit of what a kiln and its contents can withstand. It refers in particular to a method of firing the Black Raku kiln to a temperature well above the 1200 degrees centigrade normally used to fire Black Raku tea bowls. The unique effects obtained by the use of the yakinuki firing technique combined with the dynamically sculptural approach Jikinyū takes to the making of his forms produce works of incontestable originality.

The works Jikinyū creates under the umbrella of yakinuki vary enormously in visual appearance and material quality. They are made from several different kinds of clay and are glazed using a wide range of materials. They have many kinds of surface texture and there is much diversity in how spatulas have been used to sculpt their forms. Until around 2014 their glazes were bright and colourful but in recent years they have tended to be more subdued and monochromatic. The exhibition focuses on yakinuki tea bowls made between 2000 and the present day. We hope you will enjoy this opportunity to engage with the richness and always evolving diversity of Jikinyū’s creative world.

Raku wares were first made by Chōjirō during the Momoyama period (1573-1615) and have been produced since then for nearly 450 years. Jikinyū is the name assumed by the 15^th generation Kichizaemon when he retired from the Raku family headship in 2019. He continues today to explore through the making of tea bowls his unique creative vision.

One can see in this exhibition Black Raku and Red Raku tea bowls made by Jikinyū in the spirit of the tradition pioneered by Chōjirō in response to the tea master Sen Rikyū’s search for tea bowls manifesting the principles of wabi style chanoyu. One can also see new kinds of tea bowls born out of and inspired by collaborations with potter friends.

One of these collaborations was with the French potter Andoche Praudel, with whom Jikinyū spent several weeks each summer between 2007 and 2010 using the materials, tools and kilns available in Andoche’s studio. One outcome was his series of ‘French Raku’ tea bowls. In 2014 he collaborated with Hagi’s 15^th generation Sakakura Shinbei (now Sakakura Ikkei) in an exchange of forming techniques through which he learnt how to throw on the potter’s wheel. He enjoyed this so much that he later held an exhibition of wheel-thrown tea bowls. Each of the bowls was uniquely different in terms of shape, manner of forming and how they were glazed. Our hope is that visitors to the exhibition will gain an understanding of Jikinyū’s always lively inquisitiveness, his highly evolved aesthetic sense, and the spirit of freedom and enjoyment he brings to working with clay.