Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within is a major touring retrospective and monograph centered on the life and work of artist Toshiko Takaezu (1922–2011). Opening first at The Noguchi Museum, the exhibition is the first nationally touring retrospective of Takaezu’s work in twenty years.

Of Okinawan heritage and born in Hawai‘i, Toshiko Takaezu was a groundbreaking twentieth-century abstract artist most celebrated  for her prolific output of expressively glazed “closed form” ceramic sculptures that ranged in scale from palm-sized works to immersive sculptural environments.

Featuring approximately 200 objects from public and private collections across the country, Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within will present a comprehensive portrait of Takaezu’s life and work. This chronological retrospective will chart the development of Takaezu’s hybrid practice over seven decades, documenting her early student work in Hawai‘i and at the Cranbrook Academy through her years teaching at the Cleveland Institute of Art and later at Princeton University. To represent this evolution, the show will present a series of installations loosely inspired by ones that Takaezu created in her own lifetime: from a set table of functional wares from the early 1950s to an immer-sive constellation of monumental ceramic forms from the late 1990s to early 2000s.

The exhibition runs until July 28, 2024