Yamada Kazu, Large Signed Blue Oribe Plate

Japan, contemporary era

Large circular stoneware plate by Yamada Kazu, with an irregular rim and widely splayed wall. The blue-Oribe decoration is created by broad concentric and spiral passages of deep blue and green, highlighted by dark lines and the relief of turned striations revealing the clay. The piece presents a simple and very legible structure, where form, material, and glaze are sufficient to produce the visual effect. The reverse is signed, and the plate is accompanied by its signed tomobako.

This plate is significant in the artist’s work due to its format. With a diameter of 49.5 cm, it belongs to a group of large-scale pieces that Yamada Kazu produced in limited numbers. This scale gives the plate a particular presence and reinforces the reading of the spiral decoration, which is organized like a vast field revolving around the center.

Yamada Kazu was born in 1954 into a family of potters in Tokoname, Aichi Prefecture. He graduated from Osaka University of Arts in 1976 and, in the same year, established his own kiln in Echizen, Fukui Prefecture. The Victoria and Albert Museum emphasizes the importance of this establishment in Echizen to his career and notes that he was initially influenced by Suzuki Osamu, his university professor, before finding a decisive mentor in Katō Tōkurō, with whom he worked until Tōkurō’s death in 1985. The V&A also insists that Katō's philosophy—to reinterpret Momoyama-period tea ceramics in a living language—remains central to Yamada's work.

This lineage is essential to understanding the present plate. Yamada Kazu is part of a contemporary interpretation of traditional Japanese stoneware, particularly Shino and Oribe, but without pastiche. The connection with Katō Tōkurō is particularly important here, as it is within this lineage that his interest in the ceramic traditions of the Momoyama period and their reinvention in powerful, open, and contemporary forms lies.

Yamada Kazu's presence in public collections is well-documented. A work is held at the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, where Art Platform Japan documents a 1994 Shino chawan belonging to the Kimura Teizo Collection. A work is also held at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, with a collection record in the artist's name. The Victoria and Albert Museum also holds several works by Yamada Kazu and provides an extensive biographical note. These three references are sufficient to establish a solid institutional presence, both in Japan and internationally.

In this large blue-Oribe plate, the quality of the piece therefore lies in the combination of a large scale, a mastery of glaze, and a very clear position in contemporary Japanese ceramics.

Dimensions: diameter 49.5 cm (19.5 inches); height 7.3 cm (2.9 inches).