Tokuda Yasokichi III 徳田 八十吉 1933-2009

TOKUDA YASOKICHI III was born in Ishikawa Prefecture as the eldest son of Tokuda Yasokichi II. After having withdrawn from the Kanazawa Arts and Crafts College, he helped his father to pursue the traditional family ceramic business. He learned the traditional methods of kutani glaze preparation and decoration from his grandfather, Tokuda Yasokichi I. At first Tokuda confined himself to traditional style pieces with a modern flavor. However, after 1973, he was prompted by his peers to develop a personal style. He invented a technique that enabled him to control the suffusion of kutani color glazes, creating a starburst effect that is, according to the artist, "somewhat in the manner of modern color-field painters such as Mark Rothko." Tokuda was designated a National Living Treasure in 1997 for porcelain with colored glazes. 

Selected Public Collections:

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA
British Museum, London, UK
Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, WI
Indianapolis Museum of Art, IN
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Ministry of Culture, Tokyo, Japan
Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN
National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, D.C.
National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan
National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
National Museum, Tokyo, Japan
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT