1900-1968
male
living national treasure
First studied design etc., under pottery art designer Hino Atsushi, afterwards working at Gifu Prefectural Ceramics Research Institute and starting to create pottery on the side in 1926. In 1927, he was selected for a prize for the first time in the eighth Exhibition of the Imperial Fine Arts Academy in the fourth category, the Industrial Art Category, which was newly established in the same year. Since then, he continued to exhibit his works, and took on the name “Hajime” from 1930.
Additionally, he received the Grand Prize at the Paris International Exposition in 1937, and in 1940, he built a kiln in Yokohama and focused on researching the glaze of China’s Ming Dynasty, creating a fusion of it with Seto glaze and receiving the Chunichi Cultural Award in 1952. In 1954, he established the ‘Tori Society’ in Tori, Izusan with Ishiguro Munemaro, Kaneshige Toyo, Arakawa Toyozo and Kato Tokuro. Furthermore, he left contributions in the research of porcelain as well, such as red-figure, white porcelain and celadon porcelain. In 1957, he was acknowledged as a preserver of the overglaze technique, and was then acknowledged as a Preserver of Important Intangible Cultural Property (Living National Treasure) in 1961.
