Koike Shoko is one of a number of younger women potters who have begun to appear on the stage of Japanese ceramics, long an almost exclusive purview of men. She is the second daughter of the branch mananger of a paper manufacturing company who died on the battlefield in 1945. At first she wanted to become a glass maker, but, unable to sudy glass at Tokyo Art University (B.A., 1966, M.F.A., 1969), she turned to ceramics and became so proficient that she won its Salon de Printemps Award with her graduation piece. After building a kiln in Tama, Tokyo, she exhibited only in one-woman shows at Tokyo ceramics and crafts galleries, and in department store group exhibitions. Koike made relatively small vessels and sculptures until 1991 when she began to produce works on a larger scale. [From "Modern Japanese Ceramics in American Collections," Japan Society, 1993.]