Kondō Takahiro

Exhibitions
- Kishi Eiko: A Delicate Balance Kondo Takahiro: Silver Mist
  3 Mar - 16 Apr 2005
  
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- Celestial Ceramics
  The Art of Kondo Takahiro 19 Mar - 18 May 2002
  
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biography

September 2016 Gallery Solo Exhibition

Kondō Takahiro was born in Kyoto, into a lineage celebrated for their traditional sometsuke (cobalt blue-and-white porcelain ceramics). From an early age, he was also a competitive sportsman and became a champion in table tennis traveling abroad for competitions. His early ceramics followed the sometsuke tradition mastered by his grandfather and father, and like them, was highly influenced by the work and writings of Tomimoto Kenkichi and his concept of balancing and integrating technique with originality. Kondō has continually striven to determine his own independent artistic identity, developing his now-patented gintekisai (silver mist representing “water born from fire”) glaze comprised of an amalgam of platinum, gold, silver and glass that appears as metallic droplets of condensation glistening on his porcelain surfaces, while he also experiments with new media, particularly metal and cast glass.

Having grown up near the Kiyomizu (“Pure water”) Temple in Kyoto, water is a constant theme throughout Kondo’s work and “silver mist” illustrates his fascination with its various states including mist, ice, and steam. The artist was deeply affected by the disasters that befell Japan in 2011 and has incorporated the subject in much of his recent work, as well as raising funds and working with those areas most devastated by the cataclysmic events.

1958 Born in Kyoto
1982 Graduated from the Literature Department, Hōsei University
1985 Completed training at Kyoto Ceramics Training School
1986 Completed training at Kyoto Industrial Research Institute
2002-3 Masters of Design and Applied Arts, Edinburgh College of Art
Awards:

1986 Awarded the Nikkei Newspaper Award, Nihon dentō kōgeikaiten (Japan Traditional Arts and Crafts Exhibition), Kinki District
1994 Awarded the Kyoto City Emerging Artists Award
2003 Awarded the Inglis Allen Masters of Design Award, Edinburgh College of Art

Lectures and Demonstrations:

2005 California College of the Arts, Oakland, sponsored by The California College of the Arts Ceramics Guild, DeAnza College Ceramics Department, The Clay and Glass Arts Foundation, Orchard Valley Ceramic Arts Guild
2009 Installed a kiln titled “Tenkawa Kama” as artwork, Tenga Shrine, Nara
2010 Lecture at International Research Cetner for Japanese Studies, Kyoto
Lecture at The Donald Keene Center for Japanese Culture, Columbia University, NY
2011 Workshop at Pier Arts Centre, Orkney, UK

Selected Public Collections:

Aberdeen Art Gallery, Australia
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
Cultural Foundation of the New York Times, NY
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England
Hamilton Art Gallery, Australia
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
Miho Museum, Shiga Prefecture
Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
National Gallery, Victoria, Australia
National Museum of Scotland
Paper Museum, Tokyo
Paramita Museum, Mie
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, RI
São Paolo Museum, Brazil
Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS
Yale University Art Gallery, CT
Kondō Takahiro
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BORN 1958, KYOTO, JAPAN
Throughout his career, Kondō Takahiro has striven to determine his own independent artistic identity through extensive experimentation. Born in Kyoto into a family celebrated for its traditional sometsuke (cobalt blue-and-white porcelain), he first began working with the challenging medium of porcelain and it has remained his principal material. As a young man he was a competitive sportsman, becoming a champion in table tennis and traveling abroad for competitions. Despite his exposure to clay at an early age, he did not seriously consider pursuing a career related to his family’s art until he was in his twenties.

Kondo’s early work followed the sometsuke tradition mastered by his grandfather and father and, like them, he was highly influenced by the work and writings of Tomimoto Kenkichi (1886-1963), who stressed the importance of balancing technique with originality. He quickly developed his own style and began to incorporate other media into his work, starting with metal then adding cast glass.
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Kondo draws inspiration from the natural world, with water being a central theme.
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This early experimentation resulted in his unique and highly distinctive “silver mist” (gintekisai) glaze, which is an amalgam of platinum, gold, silver and glass frit that ranges in appearance from a subtle shimmer to a stream of molten drops that cling and pool over the porcelain surfaces.

Water has been his principal theme for many years and he has explored not only its physical forms such as rain, ice, steam, and mist, but also its conceptual aspects as a source of life, purifier, natural resource, and, most currently, as a critical environmental issue in regards to the nuclear disaster in Fukushima. Kondō was deeply affected by the natural disasters that befell Japan in 2011 and has incorporated his thoughts and feelings on the subject into most of his work since then. He continues to spend substantial time fund-raising and working with those residing in the areas most devastated by those cataclysmic events.
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public collections

Selected Public Collections

Aberdeen Art Gallery, UK
Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, Little Rock, AR
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA
Brooklyn Museum, NY
Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, WI
Chion-in Wajun-Kaikan, Kyoto, Japan
Cincinnati Art Museum, OH
Cultural Foundation of the New York Times, New York, NY
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK
Hamilton Art Gallery, Victoria, Australia
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Miho Museum, Koka, Japan
Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN
Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY
Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art, Shiga, Japan
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public collections 2

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
Musée national des arts asiatiques-GUIMET, Paris, France
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland
Paper Museum, Tokyo, Japan
Paramita Museum, Mie, Japan
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA
Portland Art Museum, OR
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, RI
São Paolo Museum, Brazil
Seattle Art Museum, WA
Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS
Ulster National Museum, Holywood, UK
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT