Toshio Odate (born 1930) is a Japanese-born American sculptor, woodworker, craftsmen, author, and educator. He specializes in Japanese woodworking and is a noted

shoji A is a door, window or room divider used in traditional Japanese architecture, consisting of translucent (or transparent) sheets on a lattice frame. Where light transmission is not needed, the similar but opaque '' fusuma'' is used (oshiir ...

maker. He is the author of, ''Japanese Woodworking Tools: Their Tradition, Spirit and Use'' (Taunton Press, 1984).

Biography

Toshio Odate was born in 1930 in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. He trained in Japan as a cabinetmaker early in his career for 7 years starting at age 16, this was due to the economic pressure in Japan post-World War II. In 1948, he moved to the United States for one year for college, followed by a year in Denmark for study of Scandinavian design. He was planning to return to Japan to teach, however he changed his mind and Odate then decided to return to the United States, to live in New York City. In 1973, he moved to

Woodbury, Connecticut Woodbury is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 9,723 at the 2020 census. The town center, comprising the adjacent villages of Woodbury and North Woodbury, is designated by the U.S. Census Bureau as the Woo ...

. He taught sculpture classes at

Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...

briefly, followed by teaching at

State University of New York at Purchase The State University of New York at Purchase (commonly Purchase College or SUNY Purchase) is a public liberal arts college in Purchase, New York. It is one of 13 comprehensive colleges in the State University of New York (SUNY) system. It was fo ...

Brooklyn Museum Art School The Brooklyn Museum Art School was a non-degree-granting professional school that opened at the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York in the summer of 1941. The Brooklyn Museum Art School provided instruction for amateur artists as well until Janua ...

, and

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York (state), New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was ...

. At Brookfield Craft Center, Odate taught shoji-making classes. His work is included in the public collection at UCR Arts, Memorial Art Gallery,

Chazen Museum of Art The Chazen Museum of Art is an art museum located at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in Madison, Wisconsin. The Chazen Museum of Art is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. History Until 2005, the Museum was known regularly as th ...

, and

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was des ...

. Odate is included in the ''Brooklyn Museum Interviews of Artists, 1965–1968'', and the ''Stephen Radich Gallery Records, 1942–1979'', at the

Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washingt ...

Publications

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Odate, Toshio 1930 births Japanese woodworkers Artists from Tokyo Artists from Connecticut Pratt Institute faculty American woodworkers Brooklyn Museum Art School faculty Cooper Union faculty Living people Japanese emigrants to the United States American artists of Japanese descent