Our exhibition Beyond the Surface: The Unity of Form and Pattern in the Work of Wada Morihiro is featured in the latest edition of Gekkan Bijutsu! Below is a translation of the article.
Art Topics:
A Solo Show for Ceramist Wada Morihiro in New York,
Nearly 60 representative patterns attract praise.
An exhibition planned during the artist’s lifetime was brought to life by the gallery owner after Wada’s death.
Joan B Mirviss LTD’s exhibition, Beyond the Surface: The Unity of Form and Pattern in the Work of Wada Morihiro, is attracting praise. Planned to coincide with Asia Week New York 2025, the show is a collaborative exhibition also featuring paintings from Shibunkaku.
Before Wada’s untimely death, Mirviss visited the artist at his studio in Kasama and selected works to be featured in a solo show. Unfortunately, Wada soon passed away in 2008. Wada’s family held onto the works until 2022, when they approached Mirviss about them. The promised exhibition finally came to fruition.
The exhibition features nearly 60 works featuring Wada’s iconic patterns and forms. During his lifetime, Wada constantly innovated, creating new patterns with distinctive character that delighted and surprised his viewers. These patterns created the ceramic forms, which Wada described as vessels for the human spirit. For an artist who thought so deeply about pattern and decoration, he must have designed a great variety of patterns over the course of his artistic development. During the exhibition’s presale, Wada’s works were acquired by numerous prominent American art museums, and there has been an enthusiastic influx of visitors to the gallery.
Joan Mirviss studied Japanese art history at Columbia University and has a long career as a dealer of Japanese art. She authored The Allure of Japanese Contemporary Ceramics (published by Mitsumura Suiko Shoin). Having written on the importance of Tomimoto Kenkichi and Kamoda Shōji, it was natural for Wada Morihiro to be her next subject. Wada studied under Tomimoto at the Kyoto City University of Arts and was hailed as the next Kamoda Shōji during his lifetime. It was certainly not just Mirviss who recognized the relationship between the work of Kamoda and Wada. The two shared a sensitivity not just towards the ceramic surface, but also towards a desire to create unique and distinctive works.
Thank you, Joan Mirviss, for showing Wada Morihiro to the world and for remembering him.
(Translation by Nicolle Bertozzi)
