Kuroda Taizo

Biography

Kuroda is one of the most important Japanese contemporary ceramicists of the twentieth and twenty-first century. Born in 1946, Kuroda began his study of ceramics in Canada in the 1970s, returning to Japan in 1981. He soon completed an apprenticeship with Shimaoka Tatsuzo (1919-2007), a key potter of the Mingei movement who was later designated a Living National Treasure of Japan (Ningen kokuho). In 1991, Kuroda built his home and studio in Futo, Izu Peninsula and began making high-fired unglazed (yakishime) white porcelain approximately a year later, besotted by the purity of Korean Joseon dynasty porcelain wares.

In the artist's own words "what I am ultimately looking for is a perfect space. I am not ready yet to make such a form, however. With a wheel, it is possible to make a piece that is almost perfect, but I cannot allow myself to do that yet."