Miye Matsukata

Miye Matsukata (January 27, 1922 — February 16, 1981), sometimes written as Miyé Matsukata, was a Japanese-born American jewelry designer based in Boston, Massachusetts. She served on the first board of directors of the Society of North American Goldsmiths.

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Early life

Miye Matsukata was born in Tokyo; her parents had both lived in the United States before her birth. Her paternal grandfather was Matsukata Masayoshi, Prime Minister of Japan from 1891 to 1892 and from 1896 to 1898; her sisters were Haru M. Reischauer, a writer and wife of the diplomat and scholar Edwin O. Reischauer, and Tané Matsukata, founder of the Nishimachi International School. An uncle, Kōjirō Matsukata, was a major collector of Western art in Tokyo. Another uncle, Saburō Matsukata, was a Japanese alpinist.[1]

Miye Matsukata was educated at Principia College in Illinois, graduating in 1944, and at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, graduating in 1949. During her graduate studies she traveled on scholarship in Scandinavia.[2][3]

Career

Matsukata designed jewelry in Boston, and began Atelier Janiye in the 1950s, with her classmates Naomi Katz Harris and Janice Whipple Williams. She was awarded another travel grant to study goldsmithing techniques in the Middle East and in Greece in 1966. In 1968, she organized an exhibition of new American art jewelry at the Odakyu Department Store in Tokyo. She served on the board of directors of the Society of North American Goldsmiths in 1970, 1972, and 1973. She taught several classes at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine in 1976.[4]

Her works was characterized by a mix of media, using beads, stones, coins, glass, enamel, fabric, and other materials in addition to unconventional uses of gold or silver.[2][5] "Unlike much of the found object jewelry made during the 1960s and '70s," observes one scholar, "Matsukata's work did not celebrate cast-off goods, invoke shamanic tradition, or make sly pop cultural references."[6]

Personal life

Matsukata died suddenly in 1981, aged 59 years, possibly from meningitis.[7] Her papers, including sketchbooks, journals, business records, correspondence, and photographs, are in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.[8]

Atelier Janiye continued as a jewelry studio under Matsukata's associates, Nancy Michel and Alexandra Solowij Watkins,[9] until they retired in 2014.[10] In 2011 a show featuring and inspired by her work, "Atelier Janiyé: And the Legacy of Master Jeweler Miyé Matsukata", was exhibited at the Fuller Craft Museum.[11][12]

References
  1. Haru Matsukata Reischauer, Samurai and Silk: A Japanese and American Heritage (Harvard University Press 1986): 13. ISBN 9780674788015
  2. Debra K. Piot, "Mountains, birds inspire 'wearable sculpture" Christian Science Monitor (April 9, 1980).
  3. "9 Students at Art Museum Win Traveling Fellowships" Boston Globe (June 4, 1948): 2. via Newspapers.com
  4. Robert L. Cardinale, "Master Metalsmith Miyé Matsukata" Metalsmith Magazine (Spring 1986), reprinted at Ganoksin.
  5. Beth Callahan, "Squantum Goldsmith Captures Mystery of Pearls and Sea" Boston Globe (February 22, 1966): 95. via Newspapers.com
  6. Jody Clowes, Metalsmiths and Mentors: Fred Fenster and Eleanor Moty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Chazen Museum of Art 2006): 56. ISBN 9780932900814
  7. "Miye Matsukata Dies; Artist and Sculptor" Hartford Courant (February 17, 1981): 7. via Newspapers.com
  8. "A Finding Aid to the Miye Matsukata papers, circa 1900-1982, bulk 1964-1981" Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
  9. Ettagale Blauer, Contemporary American Jewelry Design (Springer 2013): 152. ISBN 9781475748543
  10. "Mastering a Friendship by Alexandra Watkins and Nancy Michel" Patina Gallery (2018).
  11. Atelier Janiyé: And the Legacy of Master Jeweler Miyé Matsukata (Fuller Craft Museum 2011).
  12. Cate McQuaid, "Art to Adorn and Admire" Boston Globe (January 31, 2011): 3. via Newspapers.com
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