It’s Like Poetry: Building a Toshiko Takaezu Archive at RAM

August 2, 2019 – July 14, 2020
Windows on Fifth Gallery at Racine Art Museum

Paul Smith
Toshiko Takaezu (1922 – 2011) in Her Studio, Quakerstown, NJ, ca. 1985, printed 2016
Archival digital inkjet printer
Racine Art Museum, Gift of the Artist

RAM’s archive now numbers over 30 works, including Toshiko Takaezu’s (1922–2011) most expansive grouping, the installation comprised of 14 “human-sized” forms, the Star Series. Significantly, the museum’s holdings span the range of Takaezu’s working career—with a double-spouted pot from the 1950s being the earliest and the Star Series (1999–2000) being the latest. There are also drawings and prints—works with forms that echo the shapes of Takaezu’s three-dimensional pieces while also reflecting her sensitivity to shape and color. This exhibition features small bowls, toasting goblets, platters, two-foot high closed pieces, and large spheres created over several decades of the artist’s career, which is on view in the unique, street-facing gallery space.

While unassuming in her disposition, Takaezu was a bona fide ceramic superstar. She created work—paintings, prints, fiber, and cast bronze in addition to her well-known ceramic pieces of varying sizes—that embodied a poetic balance between art and life. RAM has been acquiring a range of pieces by Takaezu—from individual forms to multi-part installations—and establishing an archive that documents this significant artist who pushed the boundaries of clay in the late twentieth century.

Takaezu was inspired by nature and the environment, noting the early influence of her home state, Hawaii. She combined this with an interest in color and surface—her signature Makaha blue (a rich blue) being one of many tones she used. She was an artist in tune with concepts of balance and harmony—interior/exterior, planning/unpredictability, calm/tense, large/small.

More About the Exhibition

Exhibition Gallery Guide (PDF)

Press Room