was a well-known

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 ...

ese ceramic

potter A potter is someone who makes pottery. Potter may also refer to: Places United States *Potter, originally a section on the Alaska Railroad, currently a neighborhood of Anchorage, Alaska, US * Potter, Arkansas *Potter, Nebraska * Potters, New Je ...

. He lived and worked in Mino, near

Nagoya is the largest city in the Chūbu region, the fourth-most populous city and third most populous urban area in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in 2020. Located on the Pacific coast in central Honshu, it is the capital and the most pop ...

. He was given the title "Living National Treasure" in 1955. In 1930 he discovered shards at the site of the ruins of an ''ogama'' style kiln at Mutabora proving that that Shino and Oribe glazed work of the Momoyama and early Edo period in Japan had been manufactured in Mino rather than in the Seto area. In 1933 he built a kiln reproducing the original Mutabora kiln and rediscovered the techniques for manufacturing Shino glazes. He died in Tokyo, Japan in 1985. There is a translation of Arakawa's ''The Traditions and Techniques of Mino Pottery'' in Janet Barriskill's ''Visiting the Mino Kilns'' Wild Peony Press, Sydney, 1995. His work is kept in several museums, including the

Mills College Art Museum Mills College Art Museum is a museum and art gallery in Oakland, California. The originally all-girls' school Mills College was founded by Susan and Cyrus Mills, who were both interested in art and history. Susan's sister Jane Tolman was an ar ...

, the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

, the

Portland Art Museum The Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon, United States, was founded in 1892, making it one of the oldest art museums on the West Coast and seventh oldest in the US. Upon completion of the most recent renovations, the Portland Art Museum becam ...

, the

ASU Art Museum The Arizona State University Art Museum is an art museum operated by Arizona State University, located on its main campus in Tempe, Arizona. The Art Museum has some 12,000 objects in its permanent collection and describes its primary focuses as co ...

, the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

, the Seattle Art Museum, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the University of Michigan Museum of Art.

References

External links

Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu page about one of Arakawa's works
Japanese potters Living National Treasures of Japan 1894 births 1985 deaths 20th-century ceramists Japanese ceramists 20th-century Japanese artists People from Gifu Prefecture {{Japan-artist-stub