The Onishi family has been a part of the history of Kyoto and Cha-do, the way of tea, for the past 400 hundred years.
Onishi Seiwemon XVI is the current master of the Onishi lineage of iron artisans, counted among the Senke Jisshoku ten craft households allied with the Sen family tradition of tea ceremony.
Born in Kyoto in 1961, the eldest son of Onishi Seiwemon XV, he studied sculpture at Osaka University of Arts before assuming the hereditary name of Seiwemon from his father in 1993. He held his first solo shows in 1998 in Kyoto and Tokyo, and founded the Onishi Seiwemon Museum which also houses his foundry workshop on Kamanza Street in the heart of Kyoto. Ever since he has been experimenting with new creations modeled on famous works and techniques from the past: in 1996 he rediscovered the longlost “hollow casting” the technique of the revered Ashiya Kettles; in 2006 recreated the Yagaku Kettle (col. Jishoji temple) by Onishi Josei II, perhaps the greatest artisan of the family’s heritage. In the same year he employed an “enveloped casting” technique using iron reclaimed from the gate of Fushimi Castle to create the Kadoguchi Kettle. In 2003 he was honoured with Kyoto Emerging Artist Award, and in 2006 the Kyoto Prefecture Cultural Achievement Award. He is the author of “Chanoyu no Kama”( Tea Ceremony Kettles).
Eliseo Barbàra
京都グラフィー 国際写真フェスティバル
Kyotographie International Photography Festival
From April 13 to May 6, 2013
Seiwemon Onishi
Onishi Seiwemon Museum
18-1 Kamanza-cho,
Shinmachi-nishi-iru,
Sanjo-dori, Nakagyo-ku
Kyoto, 603-8146
Japan
