The Cotman Collection | 75

Cotmania. Vol. III. 1928-9

Archive: SDK Sydney Decimus Kitson Archive
Reference Number: SDK/1/2/1/3
Page: 25 recto


  • Description

    Newspaper clipping - pottery described as 'Cotmanesque' /
    Invitation to buy watercolours /
    Kitson's account of hearing about a Cotman watercolour

    Newspaper clipping - pottery described as 'Cotmanesque' /
    Invitation to buy watercolours /
    Kitson's account of hearing about a Cotman watercolour

    Date:

  • Transcription

    {Newspaper clipping}
    22.V.1929
    A JAPANESE POTTER
    Apart from its technical excellence, three is a great deal of circumstantial interest in the work of Mr. Shoji Hamada, the Japanese potter, at the Paterson Gallery, 5 Old Bond Street. For some time Mr Hamada worked with Mr Bernard Leach - who himself had studied the potter's art in Japan - at St Ives, Cornwall. Returning to Japan he settled down in a village about 100 miles from Tokyo and worked with a group of potters who make "kitchen wares" for the capital.
    The results at the Paterson Gallery - picked pieces from two or three years' work in the conditions described - may be said to represent a kind of aristocracy of the native domestic pottery, giving it a lead in the direction of beauty. What most obviously distinguishes it from the work of out potters who have studied Oriental methods is the superiority of the brush decoration, broad and free but controlled in a way that is only possible to the trained calligrapher. No. 1 is a globular jar in grey with a circle brush decoration in deep rust-colour, is a striking example of this combination of freedom and certainty. It is clear, on the other hand, that Mr Hamada's experience at St Ives broadened and enriched his art. Only a few of the pieces - a pitcher or two and some small dishes, with slip decoration - actually reproduce English forms, but throughout the work there is a robust feeling which suggests a real fusion of the best qualities of Oriental and English pottery. The forms are for the most part very simple - "blunt" is the description one is tempted to use - and the colours are sober, ranging through brown, russet, and grey to a grey-blue of beautifully reserved quality.
    The traditional glares of the old Chinese potters appear here and there - examples of the "Tenmoku" glare, almost black mottled with brown, suggestive of the skin of animals, for instance. Nos 12, 13, 27, 70, 82, and 87 are pieces to be especially noted. Pottery is difficult to describe in words, but a general quality to be observed here is what we should call "Cotmanesque" in painting - something firm and deliberate and slow in movement. But what makes the exhibition specially interesting to us is the sensitive artist and the everyday craftsman. The moral for our potters would seem to be that the best use they can make of what they learn from the East is to embody it in their own native tradition.

    {Invitation}
    Property of the late Rev. Edwin Harding Eland

    Mrs. ELAND is selling by private treaty the collection of Old English Water Colour Drawings
    at
    Cuddington Vicarage, Worcester Park,
    Surrey on
    Thurs., Fri., Sat., May 23rd, 24th, 25th
    between the hours of 11am and 6pm 1929

    You are invited to come and bring any friend who may be interested and wish to purchase any of these CHARMING DRAWINGS.

    Attributions and Prices will be plainly marked on all drawings.

    {Kitson's diary}
    May 31. 1929. Thomson called in the evening while Rienaecker was here.
    He said he had seen a Cotman watercolour - coast scene with shipping - calm - 7" x 9½" - Inscribed "To W. H. Harriott Esq. Presented to his kind host & friend by his truly obliged & faithful J. S. Cotman - June 30, 1832."

Newspaper clipping - pottery described as 'Cotmanesque' /
Invitation to buy watercolours /
Kitson's account of hearing about a Cotman watercolour