Some family stories are told in clay — and in Seattle, one of the most beautiful of them is on view right now. The Seattle Asian Art Museum presents The Kondō Family: Storytellers in Clay, a major exhibition gathering 60 works by four artists across three generations of one of Japan’s most influential ceramic lineages.
The show, running July 15, 2026 through January 3, 2027, traces a century of practice grounded in porcelain and sometsuke, the technique in which cobalt pigment is painted beneath a clear glaze and fired at high temperatures to create the classic blue-and-white design. It begins with Kondō Yūzō (1902–1985), named a Living National Treasure by the Japanese government in 1977, and follows his sons Yutaka and Hiroshi and his grandson Takahiro — a living artist whose near-life-size porcelain self-portraits, made in response to the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, show art as a force for healing and change.
From wheel-thrown vases brushed with lively plants and landscapes to bold contemporary sculpture, the exhibition is a rare chance to watch a tradition evolve before your eyes. Presented in partnership with the Carol and Jeffrey Horvitz Collection, it fills the museum’s galleries in Volunteer Park with a century of mastery and experimentation.
Photo: Seattle Art Museum
