Tatsuzo Shimaoka

Tatsuzō Shimaoka (島岡 達三, Shimaoka Tatsuzō^?, 27 October 1919 – 11 December 2007) was a Japanese mingei potter who studied under Shōji Hamada and later became the second Living National Treasure of Mashiko, Japan. He was best known for his unique Jōmon zogan style of pottery, and was a master of many slip decorating and firing techniques for pottery. Throughout his career, Shimaoka worked collaboratively with a group of workers, students, and apprentices from Japan and abroad. After supervising the loading of what would become his last noborigama firing in late 2007, Shimaoka collapsed, and died several weeks later in late 2007 from acute liver failure at in .

Shimaoka was born near Ikebukuro in Tokyo. At 19 he decided he wanted to become a mingei potter, after visiting the Japanese Folk Crafts Museum, which he found very inspiring. At that time Shimaoka was attending the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and after an accelerated war time graduation in 1942 he served as an officer in the Japanese army in Burma and spent some time as a prisoner of war. It wasn't until 1946 that he was able to start his pottery apprenticeship with Hamada.

In 1946 Tatsuzō began his apprenticeship with the potter Shōji Hamada in Mashiko, Japan. The formal apprenticeship ended in 1949. After working for three years at the Tochigi Prefecture Ceramic Research Center, in 1953 Tatsuzō set up his own pottery next door to his former teacher Shoji. The following year he gave his first exhibition, it was held in Tokyo. 1963 saw the first of his yearly exhibitions in Tokyo's Matsuya Ginza department store. He would later go on to also have yearly exhibitions at Hankyu department store in Osaka. Tatsuzō's first American exhibition was held in Boston in 1974, his first European exhibition was at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (Museum of Arts and Crafts) in 1977.
Over the years Tatsuzō has frequently lectured and taught in the United States and Canada. His work can be found in many museums around the world, some of which are: The Victoria and Albert Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Israel Museum.

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