A signature work by the elusive and influential avant-garde ceramic sculptor Sato Satoshi (Bin) in the shape of a faceless head imprinted with numbers where the facial features should be. It is 12 x 15 x 19 cm (5 x 6 x 7-3/4) inches and in excellent condition. Verskions of this form are held in a number of domestic Japanese museums, and one might easily categorize this as a representative work from the artist’s mature period.
Satō Satoshi (born 1936, Shizuoka Prefecture) is a Japanese ceramic artist whose career bridges postwar modernism and the avant-garde rethinking of ceramic form. After completing the Ceramic Design Course at the Kyoto Prefectural Ceramic Technical High School in 1957, he became a member of the influential Sōdeisha group in 1966, exhibiting with the collective until 1980 while also participating in the Export Ceramics Design Competition (1967–72). His work has been featured in major national and international exhibitions, including A Bird’s-Eye View of Contemporary Art (1977, The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto), Contemporary Japanese Ceramics (1979, Denver Art Museum), and the 3rd International Ceramic Biennale, Châteauroux (1986), as well as touring exhibitions across Europe, North America, Oceania, and Asia. Widely shown in surveys of contemporary ceramics throughout Japan from the 1970s onward, Satō also played a significant role in education, serving as Professor at Kyoto Seika University (1988–96) and later at Kyoto City University of Arts (1996–2002). Work by him is held in the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, The National Crafts Museum, Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum and Wakayama Prefectural Art Museum among others.
