Takaezu was born to Japanese immigrant parents in Pepeekeo, Hawaii, on 17 June 1922. She moved to Honolulu in 1940, where she worked at the Hawaii Potter's Guild creating identical pieces from press molds. While she hated creating hundreds of identical pieces, she appreciated that she could practice glazing. Takaezu attended Saturday classes at the Honolulu Museum of Art School and attended the University of Hawaii where she studied under Claude Horan. From 1951 to 1954, she continued her studies at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where she befriended Finnish ceramist Maija Grotell, who became her mentor. Takaezu earned an award after her first year of study, which acknowledged her as an outstanding student in the clay department. In 1955, Takaezu traveled to Japan, where she studied ZenBuddhism, tea ceremony, and the techniques of traditional Japanese pottery, which influenced her work. While studying in Japan, she worked with Kaneshige Toyo and visited Shoji Hamada, both influential Japanese potters. She taught at several universities and art schools: Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin; Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, Ohio ; Honolulu Academy of Art, Honolulu, Hawaii; and Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, where she was awarded an honorary doctorate. She retired in 1992 to become a studio artist, living and working in the Quakertown section of Franklin Township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey, about 30 miles northwest of Princeton. In addition to her studio in New Jersey, she made many of her larger sculptures at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. Toshiko Takaezu made functional wheel-thrown vessels early in her career. Later she switched to abstract sculptures with freely applied poured and painted glazes. In the early 1970s, when she didn't have access to a kiln, she painted on canvas. Takaezu died on March 9, 2011 in Honolulu, following a stroke she suffered in May 2010. The was established in 2015 to support the legacy of the artist Toshiko Takaezu.
Work
Takaezu treated life with a sense of wholesomeness and oneness with nature; everything she did was to improve and discover herself. She believed that ceramics involved self-revelation, once commenting, "In my life I see no difference between making pots, cooking and growing vegetables... there is need for me to work in clay... it gives me answers for my life." When she developed her signature “closed form” after sealing her pots, she found her identity as an artist. The ceramic forms resembled human hearts and torsos, closed cylindrical forms, and huge spheres she called “moons.” Before closing the forms, she dropped a bead of clay wrapped in paper inside, so that the pieces would rattle when moved. She was once asked by Chobyo Yara what the most important part of her ceramic pieces is. She replied that it is the hollow space of air within, because it cannot be seen but is still part of the pot. She relates this to the idea that what's inside a person is the most important.
She has also been in several group exhibitions throughout the United States and internationally in countries including Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Japan, and Switzerland.
