Shinsaku Hamada "san of Shoji Hamada"

1978 Named Director of Mashiko Sankokan Museum.

1985 Participates in an exhibition with Tatsuzo Shimaoka at Liberty Gallery in London, England

1986 Work purchased by Brooklyn Art Museum, New York, New York.

1999 Solo exhibition at Mitsukoshi Department Store, Tokyo, celebrating 30 years of making ceramics

1999 Awarded the 27th Shimono Citizens Award

2004 Solo exhibition at Mitsukoshi Department Store, Tokyo, celebrating 35 years of making ceramics.

2005 Participates in the exhibition “Mashiko’s Three Generation Hamada Kiln: Shoji, Shinsaku, Tomoo”  Art Museum in Kyoto, Japan.

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Born as the second son of Living National Treasure Hamada Shoji, Shinsaku moved with his family to Mashiko, Tochigi Prefecture when he was only several months old.

It was here that he developed an interest in pottery, and it was in junior high school that he committed himself to carrying on his father’s legacy by becoming a pottery.

Around 1950, at the same time as when he graduated from university, Hamada began his own training in pottery in his father’s workshop. In 1963, he served as an assistant to his father and Bernard Leach as they toured America giving lectures in ceramics. After this, he exhibited his own pieces in his father’s private exhibitions as well as in Kokugakai exhibitions.

He became a member of the Kokugakai in 1978, and though he did produce work while a member, he eventually resigned from the organization in 1992 and now puts on his own private exhibitions in department stores and galleries in various locations as an independent artist. In addition to this, he was awarded the grand prize at the Salon de Paris in 1987, and is now a member of the society.
Taking on the simpler aspects of folk ceramics such as using iron, ash, persimmon, and salt glaze, he also serves as an official expert on his father Hamada Shoji and Bernard Leach’s works.