1919-2007
male
mashiko pottery
living national treasure
Born in 1919 (eighth year of the Taisho era), the eldest son of Shimaoka Yonekichi, a braid maker from Atago, Tokyo. In his third year of high school, inspired by works of Kawai Kanjiro and Hamada Shoji he had witnessed at the Japan Folk Crafts Museum, he resolved to become a potter. In 1939, he enrolled in the ceramics department at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. The following year, he visited Mashiko to meet with Hamada, who agreed to accept Shimaoka as his apprentice. However, in 1942, following the breakout of the Pacific War, Shimaoka joined a group of combat engineers in Akabane and was sent to Burma the next year. During this time, he still cared deeply about pottery and regularly carried a Shino tea bowl with him. After returning to Japan in 1946, Shimaoka began his studies under Hamada.
Shimaoka worked at the Tochigi Prefecture Ceramic Training Center from 1950 to 1953, after which he settled in Mashiko and set up his own pottery, firing up his kiln for the first time in 1954. With instructions from Hamada to quickly develop a personal touch, Shimaoka’s practice eventually led to the birth of the Jomon Zogan style of pottery. The inspiration for this came from a fusion of two sources dating back to Shimaoka’s time at the Ceramic Training Center: the decorations found on earthenware from the Jomon era, which Shimaoka had researched to create educational models, and the mishimade, a type of tea bowl made with the Zogan method from the Korean kingdom of Joseon. What made this concept come together for Shimaoka was the silk braids he had grown up watching his father make. Jomon Zogan pottery was formed by putting white slip into rope patterns, which could be made through these very braids.
Shimaoka’s Jomon Zogan crafts won plaudits for their beauty and power at private exhibitions both in Japan and abroad. In 1996, he was recognized as a preserver of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of mingei (folk) pottery and Jomon Zogan. He passed away in 2007.
