Guided gallery tour of the exhibition 'The Kondō Family: Storytellers in Clay' at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, exploring nearly a century of Japanese ceramic art.
The Seattle Asian Art Museum is hosting a guided gallery tour of The Kondō Family: Storytellers in Clay on Saturday, October 10. The tour takes you through an exhibition that traces nearly a century of work from one of Japan's most influential artistic families: Kondō Yūzō (1902-1985), his sons Yutaka (1932-1983) and Hiroshi (1936-2012), and Hiroshi's son Takahiro (b. 1958). It's a rare chance to see four generations of a single family's practice side by side.
Long before pottery became the family trade, earlier generations guarded Kiyomizudera, a historic Buddhist temple in Kyoto—a role that vanished when Japan ended the samurai system in the 1870s. Yūzō's father pushed him toward a practical craft; he began learning pottery at age 12 and was named a Living National Treasure in 1977 for his mastery of sometsuke, the blue-and-white porcelain technique of cobalt pigment under a clear glaze. Each successor made the tradition his own: Hiroshi built on his father's painterly approach with richly detailed surfaces, while Yutaka embraced bold forms that challenged conventional ceramics. Takahiro's work reaches the show's emotional center, with towering Monolith sculptures and self-portraits made in response to the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan.
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The exhibition is organized by the Seattle Art Museum and presented with the Carol and Jeffrey Horvitz Collection. It runs from Wednesday, July 15, 2026, through Sunday, January 3, 2027, with the museum open 10 AM to 5 PM Wednesday through Sunday. Admission ranges from $0 to $14.99, and the museum is located at 1400 East Prospect Street in Seattle.
