Toshiko Takaezu

Takaezu was born the middle child of eleven to Japanese immigrant parents in Pepeekeo, Hawaii, on 17 June 1922.{{citation |title=Renowned Hawaii Artist Toshiko Takaezu Dies | newspaper=Honolulu Civil Beat |date=March 10, 2011 |url=http://www.civilbeat.com/posts/2011/03/10/9522-renowned-hawaii-artist-toshiko-takaezu-dies/}} Her parents had immigrated from the Japanese town of Gushikawa on the island of Okinawa. As a child, Takaezu helped her father and uncle farm watercress and raise honey bees. Coming from a family of few means, she left high school to support her family.Stieber, Jason, "Collector's Notes: The Toshiko Takaezu Papers," Archives of American Art Journal, Vol. 52, No. 3 - 4 (Fall 2013): 81. Her parents maintained a traditional Japanese lifestyle: shoes were removed upon entering the house, breakfast consisted of miso soup and rice, sleeping was on the floor. Takaezu did not learn to speak English until she entered first grade. At the age of nine, her family moved to Maui, where her grade school—under the direction of a progressive principal—encouraged students to read and recite poetry and to draw. It was there that she received her first exposure to the arts.Smith, Paul J., "Toshiko Takaezu: Six Decades," Art of Toshiko Takaezu: In the Language of Silence, ed. Peter Held, University of North Carolina Press (2010), 13.

After graduating from high school in 1940, she went to stay with her older sisters in Honolulu, where she worked at the Hawaii Potter's Guild creating identical pieces from press molds.{{Cite web|url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Toshiko%20Takaezu/|title=Toshiko Takaezu {{!}} Densho Encyclopedia|website=encyclopedia.densho.org|language=en|access-date=2018-03-09}} The Hawaii Potter's Guild was a commercial pottery studio owned by the Gantt family. It was there, during World War II, that Takaezu first worked with clay, producing ashtrays and other functional items in press molds. While she hated creating hundreds of identical pieces, she appreciated that she could practice glazing.{{Cite book |last=Saiki |first=Patsy |title=Japanese women in Hawaii: the first 100 years |publisher=Kisaku, Inc. |year=1985 |location=Honolulu, HI |pages=139–142}} At the pottery guild, Takaezu met Carl Massa, a New York sculptor who was with the Special Services Division of the U.S. Army. Massa became an important inspiration for her, teaching and encouraging her to create sculpture and to read books such as Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and Irving Stone’s Lust for Life, an interpretation of Van Gogh’s life story. Eager to learn more about the lives and careers of artists, Takaezu enrolled in Saturday painting classes at the Honolulu Museum of Art School (1947 to 1949){{Cite book|title = North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century|publisher = Garland Publishing|year = 1995|isbn = 0824060490|editor-last = Heller|editor-first = Jules|location = New York and London|pages = [https://archive.org/details/northamericanwom00hellrich/page/536 536]|editor-last2 = Heller|editor-first2 = Nancy G.|url-access = registration|url = https://archive.org/details/northamericanwom00hellrich/page/536}} studying with Louis Pohl and Ralston Crawford. She then attended the University of Hawaiʻi (1948 and 1951) where she studied under Claude Horan beginning in 1947. Horan was impressed by her talent and energy, and pushed Takaezu to study on the mainland. He became an important influence in expanding her vision and helping her develop a strong technical foundation for her work. Although clay was her primary interest, Takaezu also took classes in design, art history, and weaving. In the textile program under the tutelage of Hester Robinson, she experimented with natural dyes and plant materials such as banana stocks. These early flat-weave experiments sparked an enduring interest in textiles.Smith, Paul J., "Toshiko Takaezu: Six Decades," Art of Toshiko Takaezu: In the Language of Silence, ed. Peter Held, University of North Carolina Press (2010), 14.

In 1948, Takaezu began teaching a ceramics class at the YWCA in Honolulu, where she discovered her deep love for teaching and inspiring students. After the second year, she realized that becoming a fine art teacher required further study. Her instinct for self-motivation–fostered by growing up in a large family—told her it was time to leave Hawaii and travel to the mainland. From 1951 to 1954, she continued her studies at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (1951), where she studied sculpture with William McVey and weaving with Marianne Strengell, and met Finnish ceramist Maija Grotell, to whom she became an assistant in 1953.Honolulu Museum of Art, Spalding House: Self-guided Tour, Sculpture Garden, pages 5 & 18{{Cite book|last=Marter|first=Joan M.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sPGdBxzaWj0C|title=The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art|date=2011|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-533579-8|pages=432|language=en}} A pivotal influence and mentor on her development as an artist, Grotell was, in Takaezu’s view, "an unusual and rare human being who felt it was important for students to become individuals. It was through her criticism that I began to discover who I was."Coyne, John, ed., The Penland School of Crafts Book of Pottery, Indianapolis / New York: Bobbs-Merrill (1975): 138. After becoming Grotell’s assistant, Takaezu also began her teaching career, instructing summer courses at the Cranbrook Academy from 1954 to 1956. Although working in clay was her main interest, while studying with Marianne Strengell at Cranbrook, Takaezu became interested in the creative potential of fiber. Responding to the texture of yarn and its rich color possibilities, she approached weaving as a different way of thinking and developing ideas. Takaezu earned an award after her first year of study, which acknowledged her as an outstanding student in the clay department.{{Cite book|title=The art of Toshiko Takaezu : in the language of silence|last=Held|first=Peter|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|year=2011|isbn=9780807878095|location=Chapel Hill, North Carolina|oclc=715868061}} She also taught summer sessions at the Cleveland Institute of Art (1955–64), where she became head of the ceramic department.

A grant from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation in 1964 allowed Takaezu to break from full-time teaching and take a studio in Clinton, New Jersey, where she took on apprentices throughout her career. In a 2003 oral history interview with the Archives of American Art she stated that the spot was ideal for her because it was "far away from New York City but not that far."Oral history interview with Toshiko Takaezu, June 16, 2003, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/ interviews/oral-history-interview- toshiko-takaez In 1965 she left her teaching position to move to New Jersey, ultimately establishing a permanent studio and house in Quakertown in 1975, where she set to work designing and building an innovative kiln that would serve the growing scale of her ambitions for clay. Letters, drawings, and notes from the Takaezu papers at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art, detail the process. Takaezu enlisted the help of Dick Hay from Indiana State University to build the 270-cubic-foot, two-chamber, cross-draft kiln of industrial grade refractory material, much of it donated. The kiln's capacious bisque and glaze firing chambers and its moveable roof allowed Takaezu to work at a scale rarely attempted.Stieber, Jason, "Collector's Notes: The Toshiko Takaezu Papers," Archives of American Art Journal, Vol. 52, No. 3 - 4 (Fall 2013): 82. From 1967 to 1992 she taught at the Creative Art Program (later named Visual Arts Program) of Princeton University.

File:Takaezu vessels at Renwick Gallery 2022.jpg in Washington, D.C., in 2022]]

Seeking to understand more about her heritage, Takaezu planned a visit to Japan in the fall of 1955. In October, with her mother and sister Miriam as companions, she embarked upon a month-long journey to Okinawa Prefecture and other parts of Japan. At the month’s end, the two sisters decided to extend their stay into the spring. During that eight-month trip in Japan in 1955, Takaezu studied Zen Buddhism, tea ceremony, and the techniques of traditional Japanese pottery, which influenced her work. In Japan, Takaezu was intent on understanding more fully the ceramic tradition of Japan that validated the medium as an art form.Wechsler, Jeffrey, Asian Traditions, Modern Expressions: Asian American Artists and Abstraction 1945 - 1970, exh. Cat. (New Brunswick: Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, 1997), 184. While studying there, she worked with Kaneshige Toyo and visited Shoji Hamada, both influential Japanese potters. Each gave her a warm reception, and she developed a special relationship with Kaneshige, who invited her to work in his studio for a few days. Years later, she returned the courtesy by inviting him to Cleveland to do a workshop while she was on the faculty there. Takaezu’s observations and experiences during eight months of travel in Japan confirmed her roots in tradition and planted the seeds for a new philosophical base upon which she built her life as an artist and teacher.Smith, Paul J., "Toshiko Takaezu: Six Decades," Art of Toshiko Takaezu: In the Language of Silence, ed. Peter Held, University of North Carolina Press (2010): 15. Through her travels in Japan, including residence in a Zen monastery, she strengthened her original cultural receptivity to the spirit of natural materials. To her, and in a Buddhist animistic fashion, she recounted, "Clay is a sentient being, alive, animate, and responsive," a material entity that "has much to say."Saville, Jennifer, "Toshiko Takaezu: Listening to Clay," Toshiko Takaezu, exh. cat. (Honolulu: Honolulu Academy of Arts, 1993), 9.

Takaezu's practice, especially following her time in Japan, has been lauded for its reach back to traditional forms and techniques, as well as to the social context of the Japanese mingei, or "arts of the people," movement. The mingei movement, which had developed during the 1920s and 1930s, honored the beauty in everyday and utilitarian objects made by unknown craftsmen. Takaezu and others, such as friend and fellow American artist Peter Voulkos (1924–2002), embraced this aesthetic sensibility and incorporated it into contemporary American ceramics. Takaezu's friendship with the weaver Lenore Tawney was a major influence on both their lives. At one time, they shared a studio at Toshiko’s home in New Jersey and often traveled together.Larsen, Jack Lenor. "Foreword" Art of Toshiko Takaezu: In the Language of Silence, ed. Peter Held, University of North Carolina Press (2010): 12.

Returning from Japan, Takaezu joined the faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Art, where she taught for ten years until 1965. During this period she experimented with functional ceramics and her transformative closed forms. Having established a studio in Clifton, New Jersey, she began teaching ceramics in 1967 in the Program in Visual Arts at Princeton University until 1992.{{citation |last=Duazo|first=Catherine|title=Former visual arts professor Takaezu passes away at 88 | newspaper=The Daily Princetonian |date=March 11, 2011 |url=http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2011/03/11/27902/}} For her many contributions to the arts as well as her dedication as a teacher, Princeton University awarded Takaezu the Behrman Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Humanities in 1992, and an honorary doctorate of humane letters in 1996. At the time of the exhibition The Poetry of Clay: The Art of Toshiko Takaezu at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2004, she returned to Princeton as a Belknap Visitor in the Humanities to speak about her life and career.Liu, Cary Y., "Presence and Remembrance: The Art of Toshiko Takaezu," Princeton University Art Museum Record 68 (2009): 56. She taught at several other universities and art schools: Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin; Honolulu Academy of Art, Honolulu, Hawaii. She retired in 1992 to become a studio artist, living and working in the Quakertown section of Franklin Township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey, about 30 miles northwest of Princeton. In addition to her studio in New Jersey, she made many of her larger sculptures at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Takaezu treated life with a sense of wholeness and oneness with nature; everything she did was to improve and discover herself. She believed that ceramics involved self-revelation, once commenting, "In my life I see no difference between making pots, cooking and growing vegetables. They are all so related. However, there is a need for me to work in clay. It is so gratifying and I get so much joy from it, and it gives me many answers in my life."Montclair Art Museum, Toshiko Takaezu: Four Decades, exh. cat. (Montclair, New Jersey: Montclair Art Museum, 1989), 6. Indeed, she often used her kilns to bake chicken in clay, and to dry mushrooms, apples and zucchinis. As such, Takaezu largely regarded her work with clay as a collaboration between artist and nature.

Takaezu's early works from around the mid-1950s center upon semi-utilitarian teapots, plates, bottle shapes, and double-spouted vases in conventional sand and earth colors. In the late 1950s, she began to develop rich blue, pink, and yellow glazes, colors she continued to employ throughout her career. To achieve the intense colors and rich surfaces, Toshiko embraced the fire as a partner in the creative process, often speaking about the kiln and the firing cycle with reverence. She referred to the firing as something spiritual that adds an unpredictable element and outcome to each work.Smith, Paul J., "Toshiko Takaezu: Six Decades," Art of Toshiko Takaezu: In the Language of Silence, ed. Peter Held, University of North Carolina Press (2010): 17. Influenced by Japanese and Scandinavian designs, her early works are frequently brushed with calligraphic markings and stylized floral motifs.Glueck, Grace, "Expressiveness in Ceramics With Dazzling Glazes," New York Times, 11 July 1997. Gale Academic OneFile,

link.gale.com/apps/doc/A150313341/AONE?u=nysl_se_bardcsl&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=3c9e36d5. Accessed 8 July 2023. Takaezu's multi-spouted vessels, produced largely in 1953, brought her early awards and attention. In January 1955, one of her two-necked freeform bottles was first noted in the then-two-year-old Ceramics Monthly magazine.Koplos, Janet. "An unsaid quality..." Art of Toshiko Takaezu: In the Language of Silence, ed. Peter Held, University of North Carolina Press (2010): 22. Then in the late 1950s, strongly influenced by the Finnish ceramist Maija Grotell, she embraced the notion of ceramic pieces as artworks meant to be seen rather than used. Takaezu's signature clay forms are carefully thrown on a wheel, built by joining coils or slabs, or shaped by hand modeling, and decorated by brushing, spraying, or dripping glazes onto the surface.Liu, Cary Y., "Presence and Remembrance: The Art of Toshiko Takaezu," Princeton University Art Museum Record 68 (2009): 51. When she developed her signature "closed form" after sealing her pots, she found her identity as an artist. The ceramic forms resembled human hearts and torsos, closed cylindrical forms, and huge spheres she called "moons." By engaging a strategy of containment in her closed columns and ovoid forms, she harnessed negative space in an encompassing manner.Wechsler, Jeffrey, Asian Traditions, Modern Expressions: Asian American Artists and Abstraction 1945 - 1970, exh. Cat. (New Brunswick: Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, 1997), 185. Before closing her forms, and leaving only a pinhole to allow heated gas to escape during firing, she would insert a piece of clay wrapped in paper into the vessel’s interior. During the firing process, the paper burns away and the clay nugget hardens, becoming a rattle inside each form. Researcher and writer Ruiko Kato remarked that the "Zen concepts to simplify to absolute minimum and perceive intuitively" are realized in her closed forms and that their non-functionality renders them as "spiritual forms… arrived at after removing unnecessary parts one by one."Kato, Ruiko, "The Art of Toshiko Takaezu," Toshiko Takaezu Retrospective, exh. Cat. (Kyoto: The National Museum of Modern Art, 1995), 14. Strongly influenced by her study of Zen Buddhism, she regarded her ceramic work as an outgrowth of nature and seamlessly interconnected with the rest of her life.

In the early 1970s, when Takaezu didn't have access to a kiln, she painted on canvas.{{Cite journal |date=March 2012 |title=Toshiko Takaezu: The Paintings |url=http://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10524/58132 |journal=Members' Magazine (Honolulu Museum of Art) |language=en |pages=8}} She was once asked by Chōbyō Yara what the most important part of her ceramic pieces is. She replied that, it is the hollow space of air within, because it cannot be seen but is still part of the pot. She relates this to the idea that what's inside a person is the most important.{{cite journal|last1=Strickland|first1=Carol|date=Oct 6, 1997|title=Master of Art and the Art of Living, Everything Ceramic Artist Toshiko Takaezu does Feeds into the Process of Discovering and Creating|journal=The Christian Science Monitor}} Takaezu also became known for the squat balls she called moon pots, and the vertical closed forms, which grew sharply in height in the 1990s. At times, Takaezu exhibited the moon pots in hammocks, an allusion to her method of drying the pots in nets. She also cast bronze bells and wove rugs. That Takaezu also works in bronze is not surprising, as bronze casting is essentially a ceramic art form, and both depend on the element of fire. A positive form is first modeled in clay, sometimes with high-relief ribs and dripped glazes to create a richly textured surface. Molds are then made in which to cast the bronze. Many of Takaezu’s bronzes are related in form to her ceramics, but there are departures—she explores structural characteristics that could not be fabricated in clay. In some ways, the open-bottomed bells, with their useful sound-generating emptiness, can be likened to her closed-form ceramics with interior rattles. The bronze bells resonate in a rich sonorous tone suitable for remembrance and commemoration. Whereas her hidden rattles anticipate private discovery, the open bells are meant to be sounded with public participation. In 2003 a bronze bell cast, dated, and inscribed in 2000 by Takaezu was erected in a memorial garden on the west side of Princeton University's East Pyne Hall. The bell, garden, and thirteen metal stars set in a circular formation on the ground memorialize the thirteen Princeton University alumni who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.Liu, Cary Y., "Presence and Remembrance: The Art of Toshiko Takaezu," Princeton University Art Museum Record 68 (2009): 54.

In the 1970s, Takaezu began a series of tall forms that she called "Tree Forms," thin ceramic trunks inspired by the scorched trees she had seen throughout her career along the Devastation Trail in Hawaii's Volcanoes National Park. Making yearly visits to the islands as an adult, the tropical landscape played a significant role in her work throughout her life.Pattee, Dandee, "Toshiko Takaezu: Expressions in Clay." Ceramics: Art and Perception, No. 88 (2012), 98. A group of extended cylinders, called Growth (1973), reflects her strong relationship with nature. Inspired by a surrealistic landscape of burned trees silhouetted against the volcanic surface of her homeland, she created Lava Forest (Homage to the Devastation Forest). In the late 1970s she made Homage to Tetragonoloblus, a tribute to the tropical legume plant that is being promoted as a reliable food source in areas of the world challenged by regular food shortages. Originally produced in clay, the forms were later developed as a series in bronze.Smith, Paul J., "Toshiko Takaezu: Six Decades," Art of Toshiko Takaezu: In the Language of Silence, ed. Peter Held, University of North Carolina Press (2010): 16 - 17.

Takaezu was known to not date her work, often noting only the decade in which they were made, as a practice that intended that the pieces were experienced in terms of the artist's evolution rather than in a carefully laid out chronology. Certain writers have also linked her abstracted forms and expressive technical skills to the likes of Jackson Pollock or Franz Kline, arguing for her recognition as an Abstract Expressionist.

File:Shiro Momo (White Peach), porcelain by --Toshiko Takaezu--, 1992, --Hawaii State Art Museum--.JPG|Shiro Momo (White Peach), porcelain, Toshiko Takaezu (1992) Hawaii State Art Museum

File:'Garden Piece', hand built stoneware by --Toshiko Takaezu--, 1973, --Hawaii State Art Museum--.JPG|Garden Piece, stoneware, Toshiko Takaezu, (1973) Hawaii State Art Museum

File:'Gaea', glazed stoneware by --Toshiko Takaezu--, 1984-1990, --The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu-- courtesy of the artist.jpg|Moon, stoneware, Toshiko Takaezu (1980s), Honolulu Museum of Art

File:'Ceramic Forest - Three Trees', stoneware sculpture by --Toshiko Takaezu--, 1975-1980, --Honolulu Academy of Arts--.jpg|Ceramic Forest - Three Trees, stoneware, Toshiko Takaezu (1975–1980), Honolulu Museum of Art

Having had a long relationship with the state of New Jersey, in 2007 Takaezu donated 29 significant pieces to the State Museum of New Jersey. Much of this gift was shown in a major 2008 exhibition, Transcendent: Toshiko Takaezu in the State Museum Collection. Featuring 40 of her works, a number of which were from her donation to the state, the show represented a significant portion of the more than 50 works by Takaezu in the museum's collection.Genocchio, Benjamin, "Moving Beyond Function," New York Times, 6 Dec. 2009, p. 13(L). Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A213632463/AONE?u=nysl_se_bardcsl&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=2362055e. Accessed 8 July 2023.

Takaezu died on March 9, 2011, in Honolulu,{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/arts/design/toshiko-takaezu-ceramic-artist-dies-at-88.html|title=Toshiko Takaezu, Ceramic Artist, Dies at 88|last=Grimes|first=William|date=2011-03-19|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-02-08|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}} following a stroke she suffered in May 2010. Since then, several major exhibitions have memorialized her legacy, including the University of Florida's Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art with its 2011 exhibition Toshiko Takaezu: Expressions in Clay.Nemmers, Laura K., Allysa Browne Peyton, Jason Steuber, "In Memory of Toshiko Takaezu: Artist, Mentor, Friend," Ceramics: Art & Perception, No. 87 (March 2012), 110. The [https://www.toshikotakaezufoundation.org/ Toshiko Takaezu Foundation] was established in 2015 to support and promote her legacy, and with the foundation's support, major retrospectives organized by the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and The Noguchi Museum are being held in 2023-24 and 2024-26 respectively.

• 1955: University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin
• 1959, 1961: Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, Ohio
• 1961: Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville, Tennessee
• 1965: Gallery 100, Princeton, New Jersey
• 1965: Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston, Massachusetts
• 1971: Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon
• 1973: Hunterdon Art Center, Clinton, New Jersey
• 1975, 1985: Florida Junior College, Jacksonville, Florida
• 1987: Hale Pulamamau, Kuakini Hospital, Honolulu, Hawaii
• 1988: Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey
• 1989: Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey
• 1989: University of Bridgeport, Bridgeport, Connecticut
• 1993: Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii
• 1993: Honolulu Academy of Arts
• 1998: Hunterdon Museum of Art, Clinton, New Jersey
• 1995: National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, JapanSaville, Jennifer, Toshiko Takaezu, exh. cat. (Honolulu: Honolulu Academy of Arts and The Contemporary Museum, 1993).
• 2006: Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton, New Jersey{{cite news |last1=Genocchio |first1=Benjamin |title=Art Review: Master Who Turns Mud Into Vessels of Beauty |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/nyregion/art-review-master-who-turns-mud-into-vessels-of-beauty.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=July 23, 2006}}
• 2020: ASU Ceramics Museum, Brickyard, Tempe ArizonaEllefson, Sam, "ASU Art Museum reopens with new Toshiko Takaezu exhibition," UWIRE Text (30 Aug. 2020) 1. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A633984989/AONE?u=nysl_se_bardcsl&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=95d1bf04. Accessed 8 July 2023.
• 2022: Venice Biennale{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2022-04-14 |title=Biennale Arte 2022 {{!}} Toshiko Takaezu |url=https://www.labiennale.org/en/art/2022/leaf-gourd-shell-net-bag-sling-sack-bottle-pot-box-container/toshiko-takaezu |access-date=2023-03-30 |website=La Biennale di Venezia |language=en}}
• 2023: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston{{cite web | title=Toshiko Takaezu: Shaping Abstraction | website=Museum of Fine Arts Boston | date=2023-09-30 | url=https://www.mfa.org/exhibition/toshiko-takaezu-shaping-abstraction | access-date=2023-10-16}}
• 2024: The Noguchi Museum (and other venues){{Cite web |title=Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within |url=https://www.noguchi.org/museum/exhibitions/view/toshiko-takaezu/ |access-date=2024-01-18 |website=The Noguchi Museum |language=en-US}}

She has also been in several group exhibitions throughout the United States and internationally in countries including Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Japan, and Switzerland.

Takaezu won many honors and awards for her work:

• 1952: McInerny Foundation grant
• 1964: Tiffany Foundation grant
• 1980: National Endowment for the Arts fellowship
• 1983: Dickinson College Arts Award{{Cite web|url=http://archives.dickinson.edu/event/toshiko-takaezu-receives-arts-award|title=Toshiko Takaezu Receives Arts Award {{!}} Dickinson College|website=archives.dickinson.edu|language=en|access-date=2018-03-09}}
• 1987: Living Treasure Award (Honolulu, HI)
• 2010: Konjuhosho Award, conferred by the Emperor of Japan to individuals who have made significant contributions to Japanese society (Naha City, Okinawa, Japan)

Takaezu's work may be found in private and corporate permanent collections, as well as several public collections across the United States:

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• Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts
• Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, Pennsylvania
• Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona
• Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland
• Bloomsburg University, Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania
• Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio
• Canton Museum of Art, Canton, Ohio
• Cantor Arts Center, Stanford, California{{Cite web|url=https://cantorcollection.stanford.edu/objects-1/thumbnails?records=80&query=mfs%20all%20%22toshiko%20takaezu%22&sort=0 | title=Cantor Arts Center - Object Results }}
• Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania{{Cite web|title=CMOA Collection|url=https://collection.cmoa.org/?creator=Toshiko%20Takaezu&page=1&perPage=10&view=grid|access-date=2021-01-26|website=collection.cmoa.org|language=en}}
• Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=30 October 2018|title=White Form|url=https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2010.236|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=|website=}}
• Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire
• Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan{{Cite web|title=Tea Service|url=https://www.dia.org/art/collection/object/tea-service-104999|access-date=2021-01-26|website=www.dia.org|language=en}}
• Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Shallow Painted Bowl|url=https://collections.everson.org/index.php/Detail/objects/356|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=|website=}}
• Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, California
• Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York
• Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, Florida{{Cite web|title=Coffee with the Curators: The Pillow Book {{!}} Harn Museum of Art|url=https://harn.ufl.edu/thepillowbook|access-date=2021-01-26|website=harn.ufl.edu|date=26 December 2020 }}
• Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee{{Cite web|title=Works – Toshiko Takaezu – Artists – eMuseum|url=http://emuseum.huntermuseum.org/people/1164/toshiko-takaezu;jsessionid=C3EDCA307BE75EBE0A9D6FF68596AED6/objects|access-date=2021-01-26|website=emuseum.huntermuseum.org}}
• Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton, New Jersey
• Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, New Jersey
• Hawaii State Art Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii
• High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia,
• Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu, Hawaii
• Kresge Art Museum, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York
• Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin{{Cite web|date=2011-04-15|title=From the Collection—Toshiko Takaezu|url=https://blog.mam.org/2011/04/15/from-the-collection-toshiko-takaezu/|access-date=2021-01-26|website=Milwaukee Art Museum Blog|language=en-US}}
• Museum of Arts and Design, New York, New York
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts{{Cite web|title=Results – Advanced Search Objects – Museum of Fine Arts, Boston|url=https://collections.mfa.org/advancedsearch/Objects/peopleSearch:Toshiko%20Takaezu;jsessionid=EA339F79A044DFA1B73BAEE26F98CEF4|access-date=2021-01-26|website=collections.mfa.org}}
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
• Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey
• New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, New Jersey
• Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania{{Cite web|title=Philadelphia Museum of Art - Collections Object : Bell|url=https://philamuseum.org/search/collections?q=Toshiko%20Takaezu}}
• Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey{{Cite web|title=Toshiko Takaezu {{!}} Princeton University Art Museum|url=https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/object-package/toshiko-takaezu/29673|access-date=2021-01-26|website=artmuseum.princeton.edu}}
• Racine Art Museum, Racine, Wisconsin
• Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington{{cite web |title=Artist / Maker / Culture: "Toshiko Takaezu" |website=Seattle Art Museum, Asian Art Museum & Olympic Sculpture Park |url=http://art.seattleartmuseum.org/advancedsearch/objects/people%3A%22Toshiko%20Takaezu%22 |access-date=2019-02-10}}{{cite web |title=Here and Now: New Ceramic Acquisitions |website=Seattle Art Museum, Asian Art Museum & Olympic Sculpture Park |year=2012 |url=http://www.seattleartmuseum.org/Visit/Calendar/Events?EventID=23784 |access-date=2019-02-10}}
• Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.{{Cite web|title=Toshiko Takaezu {{!}} Smithsonian American Art Museum|url=https://americanart.si.edu/artist/toshiko-takaezu-4734|access-date=2021-01-26|website=americanart.si.edu|language=en-US}}
• Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio
• University Art Museum, Albany, New York
• University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, Hawaii
• University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, Michigan{{Cite web|title=Exchange: Bowl|url=https://exchange.umma.umich.edu/resources/36291|access-date=2021-01-26|website=exchange.umma.umich.edu}}
• University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire
• Zanesville Museum of Art, Zanesville, Ohio

}}

Takaezu's work may also be found in the National Museum in Bangkok, Thailand.

{{reflist}}

• Clarke, Joan and Diane Dods, Artists/Hawaii, Honolulu, University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1996, pages 98–103.
• Department of Education, State of Hawaii, Artists of Hawaii, Honolulu, Department of Education, State of Hawaii, 1985, pages 55–60.
• Haar, Francis and Murray Turnbull, Artists of Hawaii, Volume Two, University of Hawaiʻi Press, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1977, pages 79–84.
• Held, Peter, ed., The Art of Toshiko Takaezu: In the Language of Silence, The University of North Carolina Press, 2011.
• Nemmers, Peyton, Steuber. "In Memory of Toshiko Takaezu: Artist, Mentor, Friend" Ceramic Arts and Technical, volume 87. 2012.
• Honolulu Academy of Arts, Toshiko Takaezu, Honolulu, Hawaii, Honolulu Academy of Arts, 1993.
• Honolulu Museum of Art, Spalding House Self-guided Tour, Sculpture Garden, 2014, pages 5 & 18
• International Art Society of Hawai'i, Kuilima Kākou, Hawai’i-Japan Joint Exhibition, Honolulu, International Art Society of Hawai'i, 2004, page 45
• Morse, Marcia, Legacy: Facets of Island Modernism, Honolulu, Honolulu Academy of Arts, 2001, {{ISBN|978-0-937426-48-7}}, pages 24, 82-87
• Morse, Marcia and Allison Wong, 10 Years: The Contemporary Museum at First Hawaiian Center, The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, 2006, {{ISBN|1888254076}}, page 111
• Takaezu, Toshiko, Portfolio in Bamboo Ridge: Journal of Hawai'i Literature and Arts, Spring, 1996, pages 26–30.
• Takaezu, Toshiko, Toshiko Takaezu, Four decades, Montclair, New Jersey, Montclair Art Museum, 1989.
• Woolfolk, Ann, "Toshiko Takaezu," Princeton Alumni Weekly, Volume 83(5), 6 October 1982, pages 31–33.
• Yake, J. Stanley, Toshiko Takaezu, The earth in bloom, Albany, New York, MEAM Pub. Co., 2005.
• Yoshihara, Lisa A., Collective Visions, 1967-1997, Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1997, page 61.
• Toshiko Takaezu, Honolulu: Honolulu Academy of Arts and Contemporary Arts Center, 1993.
• Toshiko Takaezu: Four Decades, Montclair, New Jersey Montclair Art Museum, 1988.
• Toshiko Takaezu: 1989-1990, Princeton, New Jersey, Gallery at Bristol-Myers Squibb, 1990.
• Toshiko Takaezu Retrospective, Kyoto, National Museum of Modern Art, 1995.

• [https://www.toshikotakaezufoundation.org/ Toshiko Takaezu Foundation]
• [https://www.facebook.com/ToshikoTakaezu Toshiko Takaezu group on Facebook]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110722191233/http://www.tonyferguson.net/about/toshiko.htm Essay about Takaezu by Tony Ferguson]
• [http://www.groundsforsculpture.org/c_ttakae.htm Grounds for Sculpture]
• [http://www.ciweb.org/Lectures/takaezu.html Chautauqua Institution]
• [http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/takaezu_toshiko.html ArtCyclopedia]
• [https://www.stateoftheartsnj.com/?portfolio=toshiko-takaezu-portrait-of-an-artist Public television documentary featuring Toshiko Takaezu, 1993]
• [https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-toshiko-takaezu-12097 Oral history interview with Toshiko Takaezu, 2003 June 16], Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

{{American Craft Council}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Takaezu, Toshiko}}

Category:1922 births

Category:2011 deaths

Category:20th-century American women painters

Category:20th-century American painters

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Category:American artists of Japanese descent

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Category:Cranbrook Academy of Art alumni

Category:American modern sculptors

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Category:Princeton University faculty

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Category:American women potters

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