101. Tokuda Yasokichi III  - 徳田八十吉

Tokuda Yasokichi III, real name is Masahiko 正彦 was born in 1933 in Komatsu City, Ishikawa prefecture. He studied at Kanazawa College of Art after which he went to work in his father Yasokichi II's family business. From his grandfather, Tokuda Yasokichi I, a Living National Treasure, he learned glazing in Kutani style. Not content with the traditional colour-painting techniques of Kutani pottery, Tokuda Yasokichi III continued research and created more than 200 intermediate colours from the four Ko-Kutani five colours handed down in the Tokuda family - navy blue, purple, green and yellow glazes, with the exception of red, which contains no glass components. Due to an accident, where he left a piece in the kiln for too long, the glazes became liquid and the adjacent glazes mixed together. Instead of an abrupt colour change between different glaze colours, there was now a colour gradient. Furthermore, the piece as a whole took on the appearance of blown glass. He would perfect this technique, called Yusai or Saiyu (耀彩 Vivid Glazes / luminating colors) To make some of his advanced works, he first made a fine pattern called komon, which was inlaid into the work before glazing. His work focuses less on forms, which have always remained traditional, than on decoration. It is characterised by brilliant patterns of aubergine, green and yellow executed and a beautiful, delicate shading of glaze colours that fuse together into a gradient upon a bisque that was previously fired at a high temperature. Tokuda Yasokichi III's colourful works are highly regarded in the contemporary ceramic art world and he has won many awards for them. In 1986, he was recognised as Yasokichi III and in 1997 as holder of the important intangible cultural property "coloured glazed porcelain" (living national property).  His works are held in many museums, including the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Tokuda Yasokichi died in 2009