Tsubusa Kato

Katō Tsubusa (1962–2025) was a Japanese ceramic artist born in Tajimi, Gifu Prefecture — one of Japan's historic ceramic regions — into a family with a long history of pottery making. He graduated from the Tajimi Municipal Pottery Design and Technical Center in 1979 and, within five years, had built his own kiln in Tomika-chō. Early in his career he shifted from pottery to white porcelain, a decisive move that defined the rest of his practice; his work is closely associated with celadon and seihakuji (blue-white porcelain) glazes, realized through sculptural vessels, moribana vases and tea bowls. Katō exhibited at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, the Chunichi International Ceramics Exhibition and the Asahi Ceramics Exhibition, and his work entered public collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Brooklyn Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and Tokyo's Musée Tomo. His work was the subject of a dedicated 1993 issue of the ceramics journal Tōh.