小橋川清正
Kobashigawa Kiyomasa
Tsuboya, Naha, Okinawa
Tsuboya potter from a hereditary potting family, known for red overglaze with incised fish designs; retired in 2021.
Kobashigawa Kiyomasa was born into a hereditary family of potters in Tsuboya, Naha. His father, Kiyohide, was among the potters who returned to Tsuboya in November 1945 to restart production after the war. Kiyomasa began full-time training under his father at sixteen, worked for about twenty years at the Agari-nu-gama kiln, and became independent at thirty-three with a workshop beside it. From around age forty he pursued a subdued red overglaze, and red-painted fish designs with incised lines became his signature work. In 2000 he made plates used at the leaders' dinner of the Okinawa G8 Summit. He held his first solo exhibition at the Naha City Tsuboya Pottery Museum in 2017 and retired in January 2021.
Style signature
Tsuboya stoneware with fish motifs outlined by incised lines and coloured with a muted red overglaze enamel; some pieces use cobalt underglaze outlines instead.
