Twenty-five years in the vanguard: artworks, photographs, and more from the trailblazers of postwar ceramics.

The Sodeisha group of avant-garde ceramic artists was formed shortly in 1948 after World War II by five potters: Yagi Kazuo, Kanoh Tetsuo, Yamada Hikaru, Matsui Yoshisuke, and Suzuki Osamu. In an age when values in Japanese society changed radically, these young artists liberated ceramic ware from its role as “vessel,” giving the world the “ceramic objet.” The International Exhibition of Contemporary Ceramic Art, held in Kyoto in 1964, moreover provided the group with an opportunity to see ceramic work from around the world, inspiring a change in their approach to the avant-garde.

This book is based on an exhibition covering the first half of Sodeisha’s fifty years of activity. It presents around 180 works by Sodeisha artists and by others, such as the members of the Shikokai group, who produced groundbreaking ceramics in the same era. It also contains a chronology and more than 200 related sources, including photographs and exhibition notices from the period. Altogether the volume looks back at twenty-five years of Sodeisha group activity and reflects on its impact within the wider history of the time.