Toshiko Takaezu: Dialogues in Clay

Toshiko Takaezu: Dialogues in Clay presents the work of the groundbreaking ceramic artist Toshiko Takaezu (1922–2011), who taught at Princeton University for almost three decades.

Drawing from the Museum’s deep holdings of Takaezu’s ceramics, Dialogues in Clay explores the artist’s experimental practice, including her signature “closed” forms and painterly glazing. Placing Takaezu’s sculptures in conversation with the work of her teachers and contemporaries who embarked on parallel pathways of innovation—including Helen Frankenthaler, Maija Grotell, Robert Motherwell, Isamu Noguchi, Lenore Tawney, and Peter Voulkos— alongside reflections by her students, the exhibition positions Takaezu as one of the most important ceramic artists of the twentieth century.