The Designs of Yoshida ShoyaImagining the Future with the New Mingei MovementClosed

Nearly a century has passed since Yanagi Muneyoshi and his colleagues first articulated the ideals of mingei (folk craft), and the movement gradually took root across Japan among those drawn to its spirit. Today, mingei is firmly established as a term and continues to spark fresh interest as a lens through which to reflect on how we live. This exhibition sheds light on Yoshida Shoya (1898–1972), a physician from Tottori and a contemporary of Yanagi, who, while extending his ideas, developed a pioneering movement in everyday culture.

Although Yoshida’s primary profession was an otolaryngologist, he became a vital catalyst for mingei, acting as a project producer who involved himself in creating new designs and shaping the networks that enabled production, distribution, and sales. After opening his clinic in Tottori in 1931, he worked closely with local craftspeople across fields, including ceramics, woodwork, metalwork, dyeing and weaving, and Japanese paper, to develop and promote prototypes for “shinsaku mingei (newly created folk crafts by contemporary craftspeople),” as exemplified by the revival of Ushinoto ware in his hometown. Based on the aesthetic standards advanced by Yanagi, Yoshida’s New Mingei Movement, which aimed to design daily necessities suited to modern life from the foundations of traditional handcraft, was realized through the Takumi Folk Crafts Shop as a sales base and the Tottori Folk Crafts Museum for exhibiting his collection, and went on to encompass the conservation of the region’s natural environment and cultural assets, including the Tottori Sand Dunes and Jinpukaku.

Through approximately 300 works and related materials, including pieces for which Yoshida himself devised the designs, this exhibition traces the course and essence of the New Mingei Movement he pursued. Visitors can also enjoy partial reconstructions of the Former Yoshida Clinic and the Former Yoshida Shoya Residence, architectural spaces where his practice of mingei continues to resonate.