Takita Kôichi, like Shimaoka Tatsuzô, is one of Hamada Shôji's best-known pupils. However, as a porcelain specialist, his work does not draw so heavily on Hamada's. The eldest son of an old sake brewing family, he lost his father at the age of five. His first exposure to Mashiko and Hamada's work in 1940 stimulated his interest in ceramics. Three years later when he graduated from middle school, in deference to his mother's wishes, he went to Tokyo to work in an architect's office, but studied design at night. He then enrolled in the Tokyo Art School's craft division with the aim of becoming a furniture and interior designer. However, the influence of Tomimoto Kenkichi, who became its head, prompted him to decide on a career in ceramics. After graduating in 1947, he spent the next three years with Hamada, where the family-like atmosphere and town reminded him of Karasuyama where he had grown up. In an effort to escape his teacher's influence he decided to concentrate on folk-style porcelain, and settled and built a kiln in the old Tôhoku castle town of Aizu, where white porcelain was first made in 1801. At first Takita made only white, blue or underglaze blue-and-white porcelain; it was not until 1970 that he started making polychrome (aka-e) pieces. In the early 1980s, he returned to his birthplace. To deepen his understanding of old ceramics, Takita has traveled widely in the Middle and Far East. Most important for him were periods of teaching abroad. The first was in Lahore, West Pakistan (1959-1960), where he helped set up the ceramics department of the National College of Art and learned an indigenous mold technique that he adapted for his own work. The second was at the Gout Institute of Art in Dacca, East Pakistan (1960-1962). Before going abroad, Takita's competitive exhibition career had already started with a prize at the Japan Folk Art Museum's New Work (1953) and at the Kokugakai (1959) Exhibitions; he subsequently showed regularly at both. After he returned home, he was a frequent contributor to the Japan Ceramics Exhbition, starting in 1971. He has had many successful one-man shows in important venues in Tokyo and elsewhere. {From "Modern Japanese Ceramics in American Collections," Japan Society, 1993.]