Did You Know?
Shinkai Kunitarō used the artist style name Kanzan 寛山.Description
Shinkai Kunitarō 新開邦太郎 had a cute design sense and keen interest in birds, insects, and animals as subject matter. The incense burner has on its rosewood cover an incised pattern of birds in flight and swirling clouds. On the box lid for the incense burner, Shinkai identifies his work as taihakuji, and on the inside of the lid, his seal identifies him as a member of the Seifu studio.
Seifu Yohei III was the artist’s grandfather, and Yohei IV was his uncle and the older brother of his father, who specialized in throwing ceramics on the wheel. Shinkai studied ceramics with Yohei IV and attended the Kyoto City School of Fine and Decorative Arts, where he studied design and painting on the advice of his father, for in the world of the ceramics studio, those who applied designs and paintings had a more elevated status than those who worked the wheel. In 1930, the year of his graduation, he first exhibited in the 11th Imperial Exhibition. From 1932, he went on to receive additional ceramics training from Kiyomizu Rokubei VI (1901–1980) after joining the ceramics society of Rokubei VI’s father, Kiyomizu Rokubei V (1875–1959). After World War II, he reinvented himself and exhibited extensively in national-level exhibitions, garnering numerous prizes. He later served as a jurist or committee member for many of the same shows. In 1989, he was awarded the Kyoto Prefecture Culture Award for Lifetime Achievement and remained active on the board of the Japan Fine Arts Exhibition, or Nitten, as late as 1992.
