Takeshi Yasuda is a Japanese potter who was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1943. Yasuda trained at the Daisei-Kiln in Mashiko from 1963 to 1966 and established his first studio there. His early work consisted of ash-glazed stoneware, after which he explored sancai and creamware. Most recently Yasuda has been working with celadon-glazed porcelain.
Yasuda settled in Britain in 1973. He has taught at various art schools and universities across the United Kingdom and was Professor of Applied Arts at the University of Ulster.
From 2005 until 2010, Yasuda served as Director of the Pottery Workshop in Jingdezhen, China, and then established his own studio in the Jingdezhen Sculpture Factory. In this studio, he has used different porcelains and celdadon / qingbai glazes, some of the traditional Jingdezhen porcelain glazes from the Northern Song Dynasty. Porcelain inspired new ways of using the pottery wheel and manipulating clay, very different to his work in stoneware.
In September 2014 he was awarded an Honorary Degree from Bath Spa University.
Takeshi Yasuda is one of the most celebrated potters working in Europe today. Born in Tokyo, he was apprenticed to the Daisei-Gama pottery in Mashiko from 1963-66, and established his first studio there. He settled in Britain in 1973, combining his creative work with teaching for Art Schools and Universities across the UK.
Yasuda’s work is thrown and has a tactile quality that retains the soft malleable nature of the clay and is a fresh interpretation of creamware. His work has sensitivity unique to Oriental ceramics, and Yasuda draws on this to produce pieces that are not just concerned with design or functionality but with the way a pot can generate and be part of ritual. His palette is puritan in colour and the fluid shapes are decorated with softly dented surfaces and occasional slip trailing which offers unlimited tactile sensation. It is the contrast of control and ease, casual and formal, which makes Yasuda’s work so appealing.
