24694 Ryusaku Miwa Aibun Sake Cup MIWA Ryusaku

Height 5.4cm

Diameter 5.5cm

Born in 1940 as the eldest son of Miwa Jusetsu, he spent his impressionable youth being drawn to Munch and Goya, and in literature to Dazai and Tanizaki. He majored in sculpture at Tokyo University of the Arts and ceramics at the graduate school, and produced his first work, "High Heels," as his graduation project. His first solo exhibition, "Miwa Ryusaku's Elegant Desire," which exuded an urbane and elegant eroticism, marked the starting point of Miwa Kyusetsu's career, and he has maintained a consistent philosophy to this day, even as his works change form. He presented his first tea pottery exhibition, "Hatsusaki Exhibition," in 1981. "Until now, they were pure objects with no functionality, but from now on, they will be objects that can be used in the tea room if you want to use them. In other words, my goal is not to have them as tea utensils, but rather to create my own alter ego. At that time, I wanted to conform to the aesthetics of tea, which are rare in the world." As he said, "tea bowls (tea pottery) are also objects," and tea pottery is not just a tea utensil, but a work with a life of its own. In the "Himiko" series, a representative work from the Miwa Ryusaku period, gold and black ceramics are used to majestically tell the story of the fantastic history of ancient times, and the grand scale of the work overwhelms the viewer, opening a new page in the possibilities of ceramics. In the spring of 2003, he took on the name of the 12th Miwa Kyusetsu. His first series was inspired by the grand romance of the Silk Road, and he expressed in a gorgeous and splendid way the gold-painted bowls reminiscent of the lapis lazuli bowls stored in the Shosoin Repository, and the oriental "Silk Road vases". While carrying the traditions of the Miwa family, he has sought to become independent as an artist, saying, "I want to be a human being before I am a ceramic artist." By shaping his inner self, sometimes through eroticism and sometimes through agony, he expresses the fundamental emotions of humanity, "life and death, love and Thanatos," directly, and is building a new tradition. In 2019, he handed over the 12th generation Kyusetsu to his younger brother and took on the new name Ryukisho.