Joan Mirviss Gallery

  • Art Exhibition,  Asian Art,  Decorative Arts,  Joan Mirviss Gallery

    Objects of Desire at The Joan Mirviss Gallery




    The Joan Mirviss Gallery introduces Five Leading Japanese Women in Ceramics
    Raise your hands if you love Asian art as much as I do. The ubber cool Japanese gallery, Joan Mirviss will hold their seminal exhibit by highlighting Japan’s foremost female ceramic artists and calligrapher.

    Sakurai Yasuko

    The exhibit – The French Connection: Five Japanese Women Ceramists and a Passion for France” Guided by the Brush”, will take place on Thursday, June 7th until Friday, August 3rd, 2012.  The gallery is located at 39 East 78th Street, New York City.

    Japan’s five renowned female ceramic artists and the country’s leading calligrapher and painter (she’s 99 years of age!) are the heroines of a ground-breaking exhibit that pairs Japan’s most significant art mediums-ceramic and calligraphy-in the hands of women and illustrates their worldwide success in two male-dominated fields. Each theme will explore the dramatic rise and importance of Japanese women who traditionally played a subservient role in these art forms. These women have become celebrated artists by freeing themselves from the traditional and restrictive society in Japan where women have traditionally been denied the freedom to chose a career and express their artistic side. While augmenting their studies in clay in France, these five sculptors, who have now liberated their unique artistic voices, are Futamura Yoshimi, Katsumata Chieko, Nagasawa Setsuko, Ogawa Machiko, and Sakurai Yasuko.  In addition to the art of clay, the exhibit examines creativity and independence in Japanese calligraphy and painting through the eyes of the doyenne of Japanese Abstract Expressionism. Pioneering new forms and shapes in clay and on paper, these remarkable women have established themselves in the global art market as a reflection of the movement and changes occurring in Japanese art and society over the past three generations.
    Katsumata Chieko
    Ogawa Machiko
    Ogawa Machiko
    Sakurai Yasuko
    Photos courtesy Joan Mirviss Ltd.
    All rights reserved

    Given the formality within the ceramic tradition in Japan, the relative openness pervasive in the French art world and its lack of gender bias held the allure of freedom for many Japanese women artists. The five Japanese women participating in this show have received classical training in clay but developed their craft through studies in France. Each artist sought to make France a major central component in her artistic evolution and life, which in turn has ultimately led to international recognition.
    These women artists are masters of their medium and confront tradition yet expose the very nature of clay, exploiting its flexibility and suppleness in arresting ways-using clay as a way to flaunt the limitations of their medium or defy it altogether. As a result, they are at the vanguard of the development of Japanese ceramics in what is certainly one of the richest and most diverse periods in its long history. These groundbreaking ceramists whose works are featured in this exhibition stand on the world stage, with their work entering major museum collections across the globe.

    About Joan Mirviss: Ms. Mirviss is a distinguished expert in Japanese art, specializing in prints, paintings, screens and ceramics for more than thirty-five years. She is the leading Western dealer in the field of modern and contemporary Japanese ceramics and from her eponymous gallery on Madison Avenue she exclusively represents the top Japanese clay artists. As a widely published and highly respected specialist in her field, Joan Mirviss has advised and built collections for many museums, major private collectors and corporations.

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