Toshiko Takaezu

Toshiko Takaezu was an American ceramic artist, painter, sculptor, textile artist and educator whose oeuvre spanned a wide range of mediums, including ceramics, weavings, bronzes, and paintings. She was noted for her pioneering work in ceramics and played an important role in the international revival of interest in the ceramic arts. Takaezu is known for her rounded, closed ceramic forms which broke from traditions of clay as a medium for functional objects. Instead she explored clay's potential for aesthetic expression, taking on Abstract Expressionist concepts in a manner that places her work in the realm of postwar abstractionism. She was of Japanese descent and from Pepeeko, Hawaii.