Japanese Lacquer Vase By Inami Tadashi - Japan

Lacquered wooden vase with a black roiro background and coral motifs in gold and red makie lacquer.
Artist: Inami Tadashi (1923–2011)
Dimensions: 25 x 25 x 12.5 cm
Japan, circa 1990.
Comes with its original box signed by the artist.

Tadashi Inami (1923–2011) was born in 1923 in Kanazawa; he was the eldest son of a second-generation artist in the distinguished Kaga maki-e tradition. 
After graduating from the Tokyo School of Fine Arts in 1944, where he studied lacquer under Yamazaki Kakutaro and ceramics under Katō Hajime and Tomimoto Kenkichi, he returned to the family workshop to master Kaga maki-e under his father’s guidance. 
Although trained in a classical tradition, Inami forged his own career through national exhibitions where his abstract and modern lacquer works were recognized and awarded numerous times. 
He exhibited for the first time at Nitten as early as its second edition in 1946; he subsequently received the Hokuto Prize, the Prime Minister’s Prize, and, in 1994, the prestigious Japan Art Academy Prize, and later became an advisor and then director of the Academy.
Also active in the Japan Contemporary Crafts Exhibition, Inami received the Contemporary Crafts Prize in 1964, with several of his works later entering public collections, notably those of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Trondheim Art Museum in Norway. 
His leadership extended beyond his exhibited works: beginning in 1953, he served as director of the Wajima City Lacquerware Institute for fifteen years, contributing to the development of lacquer design suited to contemporary interiors. Throughout his career, he exhibited extensively, both in major thematic exhibitions in Japan and abroad, as well as in numerous solo exhibitions. 
Inami’s work reflects both the elegance of traditional Kaga maki-e and a distinctive modern sensibility characterized by bold abstract compositions. 
Known for his meticulous technical research, his achievements have earned him numerous honors, including the Hokkoku Culture Award, the Ishikawa Prefecture Cultural Merit Award, and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette. A major retrospective, “Lacquer Innovation: The Four Generations of the Inami Family,” was held at the Wajima Lacquer Art Museum in 2013, and his works are represented in the collections of the Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art and the Wajima Lacquer Art Museum.