54. Koike Shōko  小池 頌子

Koike Shōko was born in Beijing in 1943 and studied ceramics at the Tokyo National University of the Arts. Her ambition as a child was to become a fashion designer, inspired by her mother, Chie Koike, who was at the forefront of the Japanese fashion scene and as a teacher has inspired countless young fashion designers. Koike Shōko thus grew up surrounded by textiles and fashion to the extent that she decided to turn herself to ceramics, a medium new to her. In her work, Koike Shoko draws particular inspiration from nature, in forms that resemble shells and in colors that remind her of the blue sky that wraps around the white peaks of the Japanese Alps. Her works offer insight into her unique worldview in which the original forms are formed in a traditional, artisanal manner using a potter's wheel and decorated with tsunotsuno (horns) and hidahida (folds and wrinkles) that are applied in such a way, as if they seem to grow organically. Koike Shōko is among the most recognized female ceramists in the world, won numerous awards and had many national and intenrational exhibitions. Her work is included in the collections of important museums around the world, including those of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, the Musée National de Céramique in Sèvres and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.