🎧 Supporting Art and Tradition: The Robert Yellin Yakimono Gallery Victoria Woodard Harvey

Appears in the October 2024 issue of Ceramics Monthly.

The audio file for this article was produced by the Ceramic Arts Network staff and not read by the author.

One morning in eastern Kyoto, Japan, autumn sunlight pours through the slatted wood doors of the Robert Yellin Yakimono Gallery, casting light and shadows on raku cups, celadon vases, a tsubo (moon jar), and raw stoneware sculptures. The curated collection is as changing as the picturesque, tree-lined Philosopher’s Path just outside the gallery. “I like to think of this as a living museum,” says Yellin, an American-born global gallerist who has called Japan home since 1984. “If audiences can learn something, well, that is my goal.”

A Fascination Turned Career

Yellin’s fascination with Japanese pottery began in the 1980s with a tall tea cup, a gift from his Mashima-based host family during a student stay. The Bizen ware’s simple form and raw refinement—flame marks, ash, and drips—forever changed Yellin’s aesthetic sensibilities toward pottery. His fieldwork ever since is to seek out those special pieces imbibed with the spirit of its maker.

While Japan’s museums and department store galleries have served for years to spotlight contemporary Japanese potters, Yellin has an agile kind of autonomy that has made him a well-regarded rogue among dealers. He started out by poring over exhibition catalogs, learning names and terminology, collecting flea market finds, and knocking on studio doors.

His expertise grew, as did opportunities as a columnist, lecturer, television host, and author of the book Ode to Pottery, Sake Cups and Flasks. For ten years, his “Ceramic Scene” column in the Japan Times shed light on the shifting world of post-war Japanese ceramics to a wide, multicultural audience. His network included the likes of specialist Louise Cort and New York gallerist Joan Mirviss, plus private collectors making loans and gifts to major museums—Denver Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Art Institute of Chicago, Metropolitan Museum of Art, among others—but none of this affects Yellin’s humility. “I may be well versed and know more than most people, but I’m still learning,” he says.

Reaching an Audience

Technology of the 1990s played a vital role (at the time, the world wide web was new) as Yellin shared catalogs of Japanese ceramics in chat rooms, creating a demand far and wide. “It was the infancy of the internet, and somehow clients trusted me with the sale and shipping of pieces they could only see on a flat computer screen,” he says.

Today, the gallery’s posts on social media reach an even wider audience. Highlights range from a live video at a young potter’s remote studio to news of a not-to-miss show like “The Sodeisha Group: An Era Born Out of Avant-Garde Ceramics” at Musée Tomo in Tokyo. Descriptions of gallery acquisitions tap into Yellin’s deep reservoir of knowledge, like a mini history lecture. He also adds non-pottery snapshots—the debut of cherry blossoms in spring, a nearby secret temple at sunset, or the ceremonial summer bonfire seen on nearby Daimonji mountain—like a postcard from a friend.

The Six Ancient Kilns

The Yakimono Gallery is a former kimono textile shop in a quiet Kyoto neighborhood near the iconic Silver Pavilion. But, the key for Yellin is its proximity, within a day’s drive, to the Japan Heritage site known as the Six Ancient Kilns.

Since Yellin’s first visit to the kilns, he has returned countless times to nurture ties with potters, find new talent, and pay his respects to retired elders he has admired. “I love the antiques, but tradition is a living thing . . . and my love of Bizen is well known,” he says. His gallery has placed works of new and emerging clay artists, as well as National Living Treasures such as Jun Isezaki, whose son Koichiro produces works of interest to Yellin. “I want to support the living artists who keep these traditions alive,” he says.

Keeping Traditions Alive

Back at the gallery, a young American who discovered the gallery on social media enters the calm space for the very first time. He appears awestruck, and slightly befuddled. “I don’t know where to start,” he tells Yellin, “what to look at first.”

“That’s perfect,” Yellin replies. “It’s like stepping into a dance hall where you don’t yet know who you’ll meet. Wait for the one to catch your eye from across the room,” says Yellin, “to see who you’ll take home.” He clearly enjoys this. Soon after, an efficient-looking Japanese woman walks in, a tour group leader asking for a date to bring in a group of nine. Yellin responds quickly, also in Japanese, apparently overbooked as he shows her the page of his calendar book. They settle on a time, she quickly bows and leaves.

Yellin introduces the next visitor as sensei Kato Takahiko, using the honorific title for the veteran Shigaraki potter and old friend. Together they unwrap Takahiko’s latest works: guinomi (sake cups), koro (incense burner), several straw-wrapped tokkuri (flasks), and a mountainous sculpture vase. A set of drinking vessels tall enough for beer, a personal request by Yellin, will be sold and shipped to a collector in Germany by the next day. When asked about potters producing non-traditional forms, Yellin replies, “There’s little need for objects like tea storage jars anymore, they belong to a lexicon of former times. New adaptations prevent the stagnation of a tradition.”

Takahiko has built several anagama (wood-fired, single-tunnel) kilns over his career. “This was the first firing of the last kiln I’ll ever build,” he tells Yellin with twinkling eyes and a somber smile. Turning a piece in his hand, Yellin points out the visible specks of quartz pebbles in the clay body, typical of Shigaraki ware. He also points out the small stamp called hidari uma or “left horse” on the pieces, an ancient tradition upon the first-time firing of a kiln to bring good luck and fortune. Takahiko apologizes for not bringing the collection in sooner, but he had delays finding a new craftsman for the custom wooden boxes housing each piece.

On the same day, Ichino Shusaku, a young potter from Tamba, another of the Six Ancient Kilns, has driven three hours with his family to deliver new work to the gallery. His wife is dressed in traditional kimono, attentive to the child in her lap, while the men discuss the pair of stunning wood-fired vases. Within hours, the pieces are cataloged and posted as new acquisitions.

The Give and Take in Life

Yellin often marvels at how his life has unfurled in this faraway land. He is the kind of person who tells stories starting with, “There’s this one guy . . .,” or bursts into a 70s rock song, many verses, a cappella. He is also one to commission an elderly craftsperson at a local fair to make ornaments as holiday gifts for clients or invite guests for an impromptu music concert by a traveling shamisen player at the gallery. “It is important for me to not only take from this culture, but to also give back,” he says.

Yellin’s private collection is a variety of sake cups. “Some are gifts from potters who are no longer with us, or were included in my book, plus I happen to like sake. These are the pieces hanging with me until the end,” he says.

But every day he begins with a ritual of sipping warm water from his favorite vessel, a Bizen cup, between both hands.

the author Victoria Woodard Harvey is an author and journalist covering trends in food, culture, and the arts. A frequent contributor to Ceramics Monthly, she lives on the central coast of California.