For centuries in Japan, the practice of ceramics was reserved for men, prohibited for women. It was not until after the Second World War that profound social changes gave them access to training that allowed them to "touch the fire". Since then, Japanese artists have occupied a prominent place in the field of contemporary ceramics, one of the most creative in the world.

The first generation of Japanese women who dedicated themselves to ceramics often combined university artistic training with a more traditional apprenticeship with a master. That of the 1940s and 1960s profoundly renewed the relationship to matter; nature and its sculptural forms are the dominant traits of this generation, which has chosen a rough, textured, organic material, abandoning the smooth and the soft. The youngest generation, born in the 1970s and 1980s, unhesitatingly made a return to porcelain.

Japanese ceramic women

Ono Hakuko (1915-1996) was the second woman to receive the award from the prestigious Japanese Ceramic Society. The works of Ogawa Machiko (b. 1946) resemble vestiges of an archaeological field – especially that of memory – and illustrate her reflection on the passage of time and on ruin. Koike Shoko(born in 1943) uses stoneware in a poetic way, borrowing from the vocabulary of shells and madrepores, shaping pieces with irregular shapes, pinched, stretched, with undulating surfaces, sometimes striated, covered with translucent glazes going from white to azure . Among the very first women to graduate from the ceramics department of the Tokyo University of the Arts, she managed to create her own studio and make a living from her art, thanks to international recognition and her presence in numerous collections outside Japan. Most of the work of Katsumata Chieko (born in 1950) is vegetal, with ribbed and half-open shapes, evoking pumpkins but also the seabed in her latest creations. First trained in fashion, Fujino Sachiko(born in 1950), reproduces in her ceramics the effects of draped fabrics with soft folds, which reflect her knowledge of textiles. Hoshino Kayoko (born in 1949) forms endless knots from a section of square dough, which she closes on itself and twists. On the surface, prints made with a straw or with a metallic instrument enhance the details of the material with geometric regularity. Futamura Yoshimi (born in 1959) creates powerful volumes, inspired by roots and rhizomes, contrasting textures as much as colors.