Casket: Red and White Plum Blossoms

Artist Kyohei Fujita (Japanese, 1921-2004)

Date1990

DimensionsH: 18 cm (7 in.); W: 24.1 cm (9 1/2 in.); D: 24.1 cm (9 1/2 in.)

MediumGlass; mold-blown, cut, applied colors, platinum and gold leaf; silver rim.

ClassificationGlass

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1991.56

Not on View

Label TextKyohei Fujita, one of Japan's pioneering and preeminent glass artists, opened his own independent glass studio in 1949, despite not having mastered all technical aspects of glassblowing and lacking assured income. He based Red and White Plum Blossoms on traditional Japanese lacquered storage boxes from the Heian Period (794-1192). Fujita modernized the form with decorations that feature abstracted and nature-based patterns, rendered in metallic foils and colored speckles encased in a layer of glass.Published ReferencesPage, Jutta-Annette, The Art of Glass: Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, Toledo Museum of Art, 2006, p. 218, repr. (col.) p. 219.Exhibition HistoryTokyo, Odakyo Department Store Grand Gallery, Shinjuko.

Fukuoka, Iwataya Department Store, 8F Exhibition Hall, Glass '90 in Japan, 1990, p. 89.

New York, Heller Gallery, Glass Japan, 1991, cat. no. 3.

Comparative ReferencesSee also Glasmuseum, Ebeltoft, Denmark, Fujita/Littleton, 1989, pp. 8-15. cf. Takedo, Atsushi, "Kyohei Fujita and His Decorative Glass Caskets," Neues Glas, no. 2/87, April-May 1987, pp. 66, 72. cf. Klein, Dan, Glass: A Contemporary Art, New York, 1989, pp. 210-212. cf. Kunstammlungen Veste Coburg, Kyohei Fujita: Unikate in Glas aus Japan, 1977.