In Tribute to Takeshi Nishiura: A Special Exhibition of Treasured Works
by 森一馬Takeshi Nishiura, a master potter of Echizen, passed away in November 2024, deeply mourned by many. In April 2025, we held the exhibition In Memory of Takeshi Nishiura, presenting his works while reflecting on his long and devoted life in ceramics.
A little over a year later, just last month, I received a message from his daughter, the ceramic artist Tomoko Nishiura.
“While sorting through my father’s studio, we came across several works he had left behind. I thought it would be meaningful if as many people as possible could have the chance to see them, so I decided to contact you.”
Upon receiving her message, I immediately traveled to Fukui to see the works that had remained at Wakiya Kiln.
There I found a remarkable group of tea bowls and sake vessels, centered around Nishiura’s original Hekisha glaze, alongside works that appeared to draw inspiration from Momoyama ceramics, Sue ware, Korean ceramics, and a variety of other classical traditions.
At first glance, the styles differ considerably. Yet the moment I pick up one of his tea bowls, there is always the same unmistakable feeling.
“Ah, this is Nishiura.”
There is a particular sense of reassurance in his work.
Nishiura’s wheel-thrown forms have a subtle but distinctive character. His tea bowls, in particular, often lean ever so slightly toward the side from which one drinks. That gentle inclination naturally assists the movement of bringing the bowl to the lips. It is only a small detail, but one can sense within it the care of a maker who was always thinking about the person who would eventually use the vessel. Each time I drink tea from one of his bowls, that quiet consideration gradually turns into a feeling of gratitude.
It is more than simply a formal characteristic. To me, it is evidence that Nishiura shaped his vessels with the user in mind. Having handled his tea bowls for many years, I can identify their front even with my eyes closed. His work leaves that strong and singular an impression in the hands.
I have handled countless tea bowls over the years, but I have encountered this same sensation only in a very small number of works by great masters of the early Showa period.
What struck me once again through this group of works was the remarkable breadth of Nishiura’s ceramic practice.
Take, for example, a bowl reminiscent of Ki-Seto. There is certainly something of Ki-Seto in its appearance, yet it is by no means merely an imitation of an old style. There is Echizen clay, Nishiura’s wheel, and Nishiura’s firing. Through these elements, it ultimately stands on its own as unmistakably a work by Takeshi Nishiura.
Whether inspired by Momoyama ceramics, Sue ware, or other classical traditions, he absorbed what had been handed down by earlier generations while seeming to declare quietly but firmly: “This is how I will reinterpret it through the clay and fire of Echizen.”
Among all of his creations, perhaps the most symbolic of Nishiura’s originality is his Hekisha glaze.
First, an Echizen stoneware vessel is fired in a wood-fired kiln. Hekisha glaze is then applied to the fired body, and the piece is returned to the wood kiln for another firing. Through these multiple firings, the glaze develops its distinctive flowing landscape of blue, green, white, and other complex kiln effects.
Even a single wood firing demands enormous time and physical effort. For Hekisha works, the kiln must be fired at least twice. Nishiura continued to devote himself to this demanding process until the final years of his life.
According to Tomoko, even shortly before his passing he was still speaking about what he wanted to try next: “Next time, perhaps I should do it this way,” or, “What if I try this in the next firing?”
When I heard this, I was reminded of the final days of the painter Paul Cézanne.
In 1906, Cézanne was caught in a storm while painting outdoors and collapsed on his way home. He later developed pneumonia and died at the age of sixty-seven. Yet even then, his desire to continue painting never left him; he remained devoted to his work until the very end.
Cézanne never seemed to regard his own expression as complete. He continued to work as though something always remained beyond what he had already achieved. In my mind, that attitude inevitably overlaps with Nishiura, who was still thinking about the next firing until shortly before his death.
While we were looking at these works, Tomoko also told me:
“My father was incredibly fast on the wheel. Even with something like a tokkuri, despite how quickly he worked, he could create such soft, full forms. Even when a piece was distorted, the distortion seemed to happen naturally, as though the clay itself had chosen the shape. I still feel that too much of my own intention comes through, or that I sometimes work too carefully. I continue to make ceramics while struggling with those things.”
As she sorted through her father’s studio, another thought gradually grew within her: perhaps Hekisha glaze, as her father’s original creation, should remain here at Wakiya Kiln and continue to be carried forward.
Hearing that made me very happy.
Perhaps inheritance is not simply a matter of preserving a technique. To touch the same clay, face the same kiln, struggle, think, and continue asking, “What shall I try next?”—perhaps that attitude itself is what will be passed on from the ceramic artist Takeshi Nishiura.
The works presented in this exhibition are pieces Nishiura left behind in his studio.
Tea bowls and individual vessels that had remained quietly at Wakiya Kiln without ever being shown to the public. Within each of them resides something Nishiura pursued over the course of his long life as a potter, as well as the spirit of inquiry he never lost until the very end.
These are treasured works left behind by Takeshi Nishiura, together with the inexhaustible desire to move toward the “next.”
I hope you will have the opportunity to hold these works in your hands and experience the lingering presence they carry.