Using traditional firing and glazing techniques while simultaneously seeking to push the existing boundaries of form in contemporary ceramics, the three artists circulated inaugural postcards to publicize their manifesto, which read:
Postwar art needed the expediency of creating associations in order to escape from personal confusion; but today, finally, the provisional roles appear to have ended.
In this way, Sodeisha, the name of which originated from a Chinese term that meant 'glazing flaw,'[6] not only sought to disrupt cultural and historical associations that pottery had in Japanese society, but also to find beauty in the aesthetics of nature's imperfections.
The potters took this traditional form and applied unconventional decor to its surface; art historian Louise Cort posits that Suzuki's 1950 vase Rondo may have been a result of seeing a photograph of an abstract Jackson Pollock painting.
[7] It was not long, however, before the members of the fledgling Sodeisha movement were even starting to take issue with the typical vase form itself, since this template was based on the very aesthetic foundations against with the group sought to rebel.
In the 1960s, the world of Kyoto ceramics took a huge turn when the city government banned the use of traditional woodfiring kilns due to air pollution concerns.
'clay images'] because I always had a deep affinity for the context of clay, and for a time, I tried referring to it as 'deizō' or 'dogu' (prehistoric ceramic ware), but I decided to settle for the term 'deishō', because of its connotation to the universe and the cosmos.
In his final years, he received a number of awards recognizing his lifetime of achievement as an artist and innovator, including designation as a Person of Cultural Merit in Kyoto in 1993.