Blue, Yellow, Red and Pink swirl in a milieu on the surface of this stormy Shino circular receptacle by Kato Yasukage XIV enclosed in the original signed wooden box titled Shino Tobako. It is 27.5 cm (11 inches) diameter, 11.5 cm (4-3/4 inches) tall and in excellent condition.
Kato Yasukage XIV (Shoji) was born into the Yasukage family, one of the original unbroken lines of Oribe potters, in 1964. His father died while he was still young, and the boy was sent to Bizen to study with Living National Treasure Yamamoto Toshu from the age of 18. He graduated the sculpture department of Nagoya University of Arts in 1987. He had an unprecedented solo exhibition just one year later at Kuroda Toen in Ginza and was awarded in 1989 at the Gifu Prefectural Art Exhibition. This was an auspicious start to an illustrious career which has spanned the Heisei era. Work by him is held in the Gifu Prefectural Ceramics Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Museum of Fine Art, Boston and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
