Vessel in a sculptural, basket-like form with an asymmetrical soaring handle, in an abstract leaf motif. Of hammered iron and the interior of hammered copper interior with a silvered and lacquered finish. Signed on the base with a chiseled signature by the artist: Ken (Ochi Kenzo, 1929 – 1981). Showa 55 or 1980.

With the tomobako or original box, on the reverse of the lid titled: Shiroi Yo Ki (II) or White Leaf (II), and signed by the artist: Ochi Kenzo Saku or Made by Ochi Kenzo, and sealed: Ken. This sculptural vessel was made for exhibition at the second annual New Japanese Crafts Exhibition in 1980, where it won the Minister of Education Award.

Ochi Kenzo was born in Ehime Prefecture and studied metal arts at the Tokyo University of Arts, graduating in 1953. His work was first accepted into the annual national art exhibition with the 10th Nitten in 1954, beginning his life-long participation in the Nitten exhibitions. His Nitten entry for 1965 won the tokusen or grand prize and the Hokuto Prize, and in 1969, he also won the Kikka (Chrysanthemum) Prize. At the Japan Modern Crafts Exhibition, his work won the Yomiuri Newspaper Award in 1964 and the Award of the Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1965. Ochi eventually became a judge for both these exhibitions. In 1959, Ochi returned to the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music as a part-time teaching assistant. He became a full-time lecturer at the Tokyo Gakugei University in 1965, he was promoted to the rank of assistant professor there in 1969, becoming full professor of metalwork (hammering) in 1976. One of the most influential of modern Japanese artists working in metal, Ochi Kenzo died at the young age of 52 while at the peak of his career. The medium of hammered metal in which he worked was extremely labor-intensive, and his early death left a relatively small body of work, much of it in museum collections in Japan.

His art is in the collections of the Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art and the Kyoto National Museum of Modern Art.

For other examples of his work, c.f. Rupert Faulkner’s Japanese Studio Crafts, plate 87, and The University Art Museum at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music’s catalogue Kogei – A View of a Century of Modern Japanese Crafts, plate 209.

White Leaf II, while similar to White Leaf from the previous year, seems quite different in feeling. Both pursue a new direction in Ochi Kenzo’s work, where contrasting silvered white and dark iron surfaces play off of each other. Previously, his work had been of flowing, brown–black, hammered iron alone. The second White Leaf’s form is more attenuated than the first, the silvered interior rises higher on the side and the stem reverses into the interior. The effect seems lighter, more ethereal.