Kitaoji Rosanjin (1883-1959)

Small celadon porcelain dish and kintsugi restoration with gold powder
Bears the stamp Ro 呂 of the artist Kitaōji Rosanjin on the back

Abandoned by his mother, Kitaōji Rosanjin was raised in an adopted family. In 1915, after having exercised his talents as a self-taught calligrapher in Tokyo, then traveled to Korea and China, he began his studies of ceramics under the direction of Suda Seika. After two years, he moved to Kamakura and opened his oven. He traveled to the West only once, in 1954, on the occasion of the exhibition of his work in Europe and the United States. Very close to the owners of the most renowned restaurant in Tokyo, Le Club des Gourmets, he creates all the tableware used in the establishment. His works are unclassifiable, addressing different disciplines in multiple styles.

Japanese painter, calligrapher, lacquer artist, ceramist and essayist, Kitaōji Rosanjin is considered the inventor of gastronomy in Japan, bi-shoku or the aesthetics of eating. In The Way of Taste, he proclaims in a manifesto: “Cooking, while taking nature as its material and satisfying the most primitive desire of human beings, sublimates this know-how at the level of art”.
In 2013, the Guimet Museum presented an exhibition entitled “Kitaōji Rosanjin, genius of Japanese cuisine”

Takegoshi Chosei is a collector of works by Rosanjin, living in Kamakura, author of a reference work on this artist.