JAPANESE CERAMICS
Burlington architect collected ceramics from Japan
One of the newest additions to the Art Gallery of Burlington’s collection is its oldest. This is an earthenware pot crafted in Japan more than 4,000 years ago.
The pot is on show in the Perry Gallery along with some significant 20th-century Japanese ceramics. They are part of an ongoing gift to the gallery from the Koyanagi family.
Kimiko Koyanagi, Burlington artist and doll maker extraordinaire, is behind this donation. The pottery was collected by her late husband, James (Jim) Koyanagi, who died in 2017 at the age of 87.
Koyanagi, a Burlington architect, was born in British Columbia. His local architectural projects included Burlington City Hall and various buildings at the Royal Botanical Gardens.
But before he embarked on his Canadian career, he lived in Tokyo, working for an architectural firm. That’s when he began to collect Japanese ceramics.
Koyanagi’s oldest find looks very much like it belongs to the later phase of what archeologists call the Jomon period. This lengthy period runs from about 14,000 BC, when the earliest known Japanese pottery was made, to 300 BC.
The earthenware pot was built with coils of clay. It could have been used for storage or for cooking food, probably fish. The body, decorated with complex cordlike patterns, widens at the top. In fact, it looks top heavy with its twisty looped coils in high relief.
The remainder of the Koyanagi vessels on show belong to the 20th century. That’s when Japanese ceramics played a major role in modernizing British ceramics. And modern Japanese and British potters influenced Canadian potters.
British potter Bernard Leach (1887-1979) was inspired by the Japanese esthetic of restraint and simplicity. He found these in the work of his Japanese friend and contemporary Shoji Hamada.
When it came to decoration, Hamada certainly knew when to stop. A tea bowl, or chawan, by Hamada features a few concise lines and shapes. The stoneware bowl, thrown on the wheel, would be used for the preparing and drinking of tea. It is fully functional and joyfully tactile.
A thrown stoneware plate by Tatsuzo Shimaoka (1919-2007) boasts a similarly restrained design in the centre. The border is filled with a subtle two-row pattern of circled rosettes, a very traditional stylized floral shape.
A square vase made from slabrolled stoneware by Kawai Kanjiro (1890-1966) stands on four feet. Its decoration is more colourful, profuse and energetic.
Jonathan Smith, the AGB’s curator of collection, says Koyanagi purchased some of his pieces from private galleries.
“But most he bought directly from the artists, especially those pieces done by the mingei, or folk, artists who would have been the local village potter in places Jim visited,” Smith tells me.
“There is a tea bowl by Shimaoka which Shimaoka gave to Jim when Shimaoka visited Sheridan College in the ’70s, I think, and he went to Jim and Kimiko’s for dinner.”
If you want to see work by Bernard Leach at the AGB, you can find some in Pacific Overtures. This exhibition in the Collection Corridor brings together examples of the influence of Eastern potters on Canadian potters.
Regina Haggo, art historian, public speaker, curator and former professor at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, teaches at the Dundas Valley School of Art. dhaggo@the spec.com; Special to The Hamilton Spectator