CJS Noon Lecture Series | The Tea Bowl as a Microcosm of Modern Japanese Ceramics

Over the last hundred years, the idiom of the tea bowl (chawan) has become increasingly significant for makers, collectors, historians, and the general public in Japan. Tea bowls function as important modern signifiers of tea ceremony praxis, national aesthetics, and a perceived shared affinity for ceramics. This lecture will trace the rise of the tea bowl in Japan from the 1920s onward, considering its status in terms of core aspects of modern Japanese ceramics—materiality, tactility, revivalism, rebellion, and global presence. Within the vast field of modern Japanese ceramics, the tea bowl provides a means to index key production and reception values.

Meghen Jones is Division Head /Assistant Professor of Art History and Director of Global Studies at Alfred University. She recently co-edited with Louise Cort Ceramics and Modernity in Japan and is currently curating for the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum an exhibition titled Path of the Tea Bowl.

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