Difficult to find, published in 1977 by The National Museum Of Modern Art, Tokyo. This retrospective occured during Hamada's last year of life, so the works in the show were personally chosen by Hamada himself. In our opinion, it contains the best examples of his work.
29 color plates and over 200 black and white images. Bilingual list of plates. Five page catalog essay in Japanese and English. A four page technical essay and bibliography in Japanese. Slight musty smell and only.slight discoloration on a couple of non-image pages. Small crease on lower right cover.Shoji Hamada introduces his retrospective:
"My work found a path to follow in Kyoto, began in England, learned much in Okinawa, and has matured in Mashiko. The National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo has been kind enough on this occasion to select a large number of pieces from my sixty years of work and to display them in this retrospective exhibition. These works are representative of various periods, as has previously been mentioned. I feel deeply moved and am grateful to have been given such an opportunity while still alive.
I have been blessed with senior advisors and friends such as Hazan Itaya, Muneyoshi Yanagi, Kenkichi Tomimoto, Kanjiro Kawai, and Bernard Leach, and have been encouraged and led by their friendship up to this day I would like all of them to see my retrospective exhibit, but unfortunately only Mr. Leach is still here in this world. Once more I cannot help but feel the flow of time.
Half a century has passed since the end of the Taisho Era when Muneyoshi Yanagi and others coined a new term, "Mingei", or, "Folk Craft". Nevertheless, when I consider the present state of "Mingei", I cannot merely rest at ease. I hope to henceforth continue to tread my own path into the future, so long as I have sufflcient strength to do so." --Shoji Hamada
I finished a 3 year apprenticeship with Tatsuzo Shimaoka in 2003 and set up a kiln and studio in Mashiko and worked there for an additional 5 years. We moved back to Minneapolis several years ago.