The creator of Japan’s most beautiful tea bowls. Originally a painter, he became enraptured by the aura of maternal benevolence he experienced when he came into contact with an anonymous O-IDO tea bowl as a young man and ever since, he has dedicated himself to the production of tea bowls at his studio in the mountains of Nara Prefecture.
The ceramics created by this gifted artist continue to delight collectors around the world and can be found in the collections of major museums in Europe and the U.S.

1947 Born in Gose, Nara
1965 Left for Tokyo to learn the technique of oil painting but became disillusioned with the process and abandoned the idea. He attracted pottery intensively, inspired by a classic ido tea bowl in Japan Folk-craft Museum and decided to take up pottery.
1966-68 Resided at Sansho-ji Temple in Nara
1969 Returned to father's farm and began making pottery
1967 Built own house in Mima, Nara City and workshop, teahouse, and seven kilns over the following seven years
1993 Built a kiln in West Devon, U.K., and made potteries

Thereafter exhibits in numerous museums, galleries and department stores within Japan and throughout the world.

Selected Solo Exhibitions:
1977 First exhibition at own house
1983 Mitsukoshi Nihonbashi Main Store, Tokyo (thereafter biannually)
1990 Tachikichi Main Store, Kyoto
1993 Japan Art, Frankfurt, Germany (also in ’94)
1994 Gallery Besson, London
2003 Koichi Yanagi Oriental Fine Arts, New York (also in ’06 and ’12)
2006 Yu Gallery, Palace Hotel, Tokyo
2007 Ippodo Gallery Tokyo (also in ’11)
2008 Honshun-in Daitoku-ji Temple, Kyoto


Public Collections:
Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina / Chapel Hill, NC
Art Institute of Chicago / Chicago, IL
The Brooklyn Museum of Art / Brooklyn, NY
Asian Art Museum / San Francisco, CA
The British Museum / London, United Kingdom
Chado Research Center Gallery / Kyoto, Japan
Cleveland Museum of Art / Cleveland, OH
Frankfurt Craft Museum / Germany
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery at Smithsonian Institution / Washington D.C
The Metropolitan Museum of Art / New York, NY
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts / Minneapolis, MN
Museum of East Asian Art / Berlin, Germany
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston / Boston, MA
Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas / Lawrence, KS
Stockholm Museum of Art / Sweden
Philadelphia Museum of Art / Philadelphia, PA
Yale University Art Gallery / New Haven, CT
Miho Museum / Koka, Japan
ISE Cultural Foundation / New York, NY