Masakazu Kobayashi (b.1944) Japanese textile designer

Advertisements
Masakzu Kobayashi preparing for exhibition
Masakzu Kobayashi preparing for exhibition

Masakazu Kobayashi is a Japanese textile designer.  With his use of fabrics, he used traditional techniques with western technologies. He collaborates with his Wife, Naomi Kobayashi they generally create individual works that are installed together.

Education

He studied at the University of Arts, Kyoto, Japan.

Biography

Between 1966 and 1975, he worked as a textile designer for Kawashima. He manifested traditional textile techniques and aesthetics in his work. He developed both production fabrics and large-scale fibre works.

"Space Age" fabric 1982 by Masakazu Kobayashi
“Space Age” fabric 1982 by Masakazu Kobayashi. In Design since 1945
Masakazu Kobayashi Sound Collage
Masakazu Kobayashi Sound Collage

The repeated lines and stripes of his 1982 Space Age fabric by Sangetsu evoked komon, a textile dyeing technique that uses paper patterns with small motifs. Other works suggestive of traditional weavings included 1977 W to the third power and, with threads suspended in a frame, 1979 Meditation.

Collaboration with his Wife Naomi Kobayashi

Masakazu Kobayashi and his wife, Naomi Kobayashi, generally collaborated to create individual works that were installed together. Kobayashi explained: “These works express a shared vision and such common themes as the tranquillity of nature, the infinity of the universe and the Japanese spirit. Naomi and I work in fibre because natural materials have integrity, and are gentle and flexible. In my own work, I search for an equilibrium between my capacity as a creator and the energy of the world around me. When I am able to find this equilibrium, my works exist on their own. Among the works I have created are projects that incorporate several styles and emphasize primary colours. In creating such combinations, I want the viewer to experience the resonating chords that come from each element of the work.”

Sources

Byars, M., & Riley, T. (2004). The design encyclopedia. Laurence King Publishing.

Hiesinger, K. B., & Bill, M. (1983). Design since 1945: published in conjunction with the exhibition “Design Since 1945”, Philadelphia Museum of Art, October 16, 1983 to January 8, 1984.

Masakazu Kobayashi. (n.d.). http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/kobayashi.m.php.

Advertisements

Japanese Design – Amazon

* This website may contain affiliate links, and I may earn a small commission when you click on links at no additional cost.  As an Amazon and Sovrn affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

More Japanese Design

  • The Timeless Beauty of Traditional Japanese Furniture

    The Timeless Beauty of Traditional Japanese Furniture

    Traditional Japanese Furniture Traditional Japanese furniture is known for being simple and useful. It isRead More →

  • Shoji Hamada (1894 – 1978)  Japanese Potter

    Shoji Hamada (1894 – 1978) Japanese Potter

    Shoji Hamada, along with Bernard Leach, was one of the key figures in the development of studio pottery in the 20th century. His influence both in England and the US as well as in his native Japan cannot be underestimated. Read More →

  • Ikko Tanaka (1930 -2002)  🇯🇵 Graphic Design blend of East and West

    Ikko Tanaka (1930 -2002) 🇯🇵 Graphic Design blend of East and West

    Ikko Tanaka was a Leading Graphic Designer in Japan. He had an enormous impact on the post-war visual culture in Japan.Read More →

  • RIP – Issey Miyake, the Japanese fashion designer, dies 84.

    RIP – Issey Miyake, the Japanese fashion designer, dies 84.

    Issey Miyake died on August 5, 2022, in a Tokyo hospital of liver cancer. He founded the Miyake Design Studio in 1970.Read More →

  • Masakazu Kobayashi (b.1944) Japanese textile designer

    Masakazu Kobayashi (b.1944) Japanese textile designer

    Masakazu Kobayashi studied at the University of Arts, Kyoto, Japan. He manifested traditional textile techniques and aesthetics in his work. Between 1966 and 1975, he worked as a textile designer for Kawashima. His 1982 fabric evoked komon, a textile dyeing technique which uses paper patterns with small motifs.Read More →

  • Japan Advertising Artists Club pioneer of Japanese Graphic Design

    Japan Advertising Artists Club pioneer of Japanese Graphic Design

    In the 1960s, the JAAC’s philosophy came under fire for being overly reliant on exhibitions as a platform for innovative ideas. Furthermore, during the turbulent 1960s, a perceived emphasis on aesthetics at the expense of social significance, combined with allegations of elitism, led to the organisation’s disbandment in 1970.Read More →

  • Yoshitomo Nara (b.1959) Japanese Artist and Designer

    Yoshitomo Nara (b.1959) Japanese Artist and Designer

    Nara grew up in Aomori Prefecture, Japan, about 300 miles north of the Tochigi Prefecture. His exposure to Western music on the American military radio station Far East Network in Honshu influenced his artistic imagination early. Later, he would provide cover art for bands including Shonen Knife, R.E.M., and Bloodthirsty Butchers.Read More →

  • Shiro Kuramata (1934 – 1991) Japanese interior designer

    Shiro Kuramata (1934 – 1991) Japanese interior designer

    He has created almost 300 stores and restaurants since 1965. Despite designing furniture for Aoshima and Ishimaru, he is best known for his 1970 Furniture in Irregular Forms collection for Fijiko. Cappellini International Interiors’ 1970 wavy 18-drawer chests garnered him accolades while exhibiting his odd and surreal sense of humour.Read More →

  • Poster for Nikon (1957) by Yusaku Kamekura

    Poster for Nikon (1957) by Yusaku Kamekura

    Yusaku Kamekura’s poster emphasises the brilliance and clarity attained with the Nikon lens and the technical perfection of his client’s camera by using brilliant optical patterns and powerful, white letter-forms against an intensely dark background. Read More →

  • Junichi Arai (1932 – 2017) Japanese textile designer and producer

    Junichi Arai (1932 – 2017) Japanese textile designer and producer

    Junichi Arai (1932 – 2017) was a Japanese textile designer and producer born in Kiryu, Gunma. As the sixth generation of a mill-owning family, Arai grew up with fabrics being woven for obis and kimonos. He held traditional weaving methods in high regard and the skills that only the human hand can have in the…

  • Soichiro Sasakura (b.1949) Japanese Glassware Designer

    Soichiro Sasakura (b.1949) Japanese Glassware Designer

    He worked for Sasaki Glass, for which he designed the 1988 San Marino glassware range.Read More →

  • Fujina – Japanese Folk Pottery

    Fujina – Japanese Folk Pottery

    Fujina pottery is made at Matsue, Shimane. 19th-century products include bluish-green tea bowls and white, yellow, or bluish-green domestic pottery. Later urban work promotes folk art.Read More →

  • Arata Isozaki (b. 1931) is a Japanese architect, urban designer

    Arata Isozaki (b. 1931) is a Japanese architect, urban designer

    Arata Isozaki is a Japanese architect, urban designer, and theorist from Ōita. He was awarded the RIBA Gold Medal in 1986 and the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2019.Read More →

  • Japanese Flower Arranging

    Japanese Flower Arranging

    The arrangements of flowers offer far more than a pattern employing flowers and foliage neatly distributed in an appropriate container. Not only is it a form of relaxation, but flower arrangement reawakens an awareness of nature upon which a philosophy – that of restraint and simplicity — is based.Read More →

  • Masakichi Awashima (1914 – 1979) Japanese Glassware Designer

    Masakichi Awashima (1914 – 1979) Japanese Glassware Designer

    After studying design at the Japan Art School in Tokyo, Awashima worked for artisan Kozo Kagami, who had studied Western glass methods in Germany from 1935 to 1946. Read More →

  • Hiroshi Awatsuji (1929 – 1995) Japanese Textile Designer

    Hiroshi Awatsuji (1929 – 1995) Japanese Textile Designer

    Hiroshi Awatsuji (1929- 1995) was a Japanese textile and graphic designer: born in Kyoto. He was considered the first Japanese textile designer to be recognised for contemporary design rather than for traditional art and craft. The main characteristic of his work was over sized motifs.Read More →

  • Ukiyo​-e, Pictures of the floating world

    Ukiyo​-e, Pictures of the floating world

    Ukiyo-e, translated as “pictures of the floating world,” has captured wisps of the natural beauty that one sees every day. These prints are a record of 18th and 19th-century life in Japan and had a profound effect on the great Western artists of the time.Read More →

  • Hiroshi Yamano – Exquisite Japanese Glass Designs

    Hiroshi Yamano – Exquisite Japanese Glass Designs

    Kiroshi Yamano is a Japanese Glass Designer. He studied at the Tokyo Glass Crafts Institute to 1984 and Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York, to 1989. Read More →

  • Introducing Kazuhide Takahama (b.1930) Japanese Designer

    Introducing Kazuhide Takahama (b.1930) Japanese Designer

    At the X Milan Triennale exhibition in 1954, he met the furniture manufacturer, Dino Gavina, who subsequently invited Takahama to work for him in Italy. Takahama’s first design for Gavina was the geometrically severe Naeko sofa-bed (1957). Read More →

  • Toshiyuki Kita  (b.1942) Japanese Furniture and Interior Designer

    Toshiyuki Kita (b.1942) Japanese Furniture and Interior Designer

    He set up his own design office in Osaka in 1964; in 1969, he began designing furniture for Italian and Japanese firms; he collaborated with Silvio Coppola, Giotto Stoppino, and Bepi Fiori for Bernini. He is best known for the 1980 Wink articulated armchair produced by Cassina, which took four years to design; Read More…

More design articles

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.