Posted 6 years ago
debbeelaw
(1 item)
I knew i loved thia pink vase before i even heard of iwata. I then proceeded to collect more of iwata glass. At this stage I need to know how to determine iwata's work from iwata studio's work.
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Love this vase Debbee, clearly a Toshichi design.
It's a difficult thing to be absolute in determining an Iwata studio work from an artist made piece.
My take after study is this:
The studio had a number of different people working in it over many years, including great artists like Fujita and Ueno. However Toshichi and later his son Hisatoshi, and Hisatoshi's wife Itoko, were the designers of their works. I am sure that all of the glass artists including the Iwata family shared the production load.
I have found that if the work is carrying an Iwata glass sticker it is likely a studio production piece. It would have been designed by an Iwata and possibly made by one, but also possibly made by another glass artist.
Artist pieces can really only be identified by the one of the following;
They are signed (rare), they came in an artist signed box, they have an artist signed bookmark, or there is provenance related to an exhibition or a commission.
Generally Toshichi's work is identified by it's very free style, and his use of pulegoso (bubbled) glass. Hisatoshi did sometimes use pulegoso but it was generally in a much more controlled manner. Hisatoshi's work is more structured, usually symmetrical, and he liked to have very visual and textural surface finishes.