Clay Image: Cellist (Deizo: Serohiki)

Object Details

• Artist

  Suzuki Osamu (Japan, 1926-2001)

• Description

  Plain, flattened columnar closed form, suggestive in its scale, volume, and frontality of a human torso (the cellist) or the cello itself, resting on a small oval base and capped by a flat, oblong top, domed in the center, joined by a sharp edge whose bilaterally symmetrical line is highest at midpoint, sloping gently to either side. Hand-built from coils of clay, with traces of finger manipulations over coil seams remaining on surface as bands of irregular but rhythmical patterns. Pinhole in center of domed top to allow gasses to vent from closed form during firing.

  Shigaraki-type stoneware clay, light buff, concealed by coating of red-brown slip except at sharp edges of top seam and finger impressions.

  Thin coating of red-brown slip applied in gradations of tone from darker at top to lighter near base. Slip overlaid at top of piece only with thin ash glaze.

• Inscriptions

  1. (Louise A. Cort, 10 October 1997) Seal (hiragana syallable su [for Suzuki] inside circle) impressed above incised date ('87) near base of one narrow side.

• Collection

  National Museum of Asian Art Collection

• Exhibition History

  Reinventing the Wheel: Japanese Ceramics 1930 - 2000 (July 23, 2011 - June 30, 2013)

  Honoring Friends: Recent Gifts by Members of the Freer and Sackler Galleries (June 10 to November 25, 2001)

• Origin

  Kyoto, Japan

• Credit Line

  Purchase -- funds provided by John and Marinka Bennett

• Type

  Sculpture

• Restrictions and Rights

  Usage Conditions Apply

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