Raku Kichizaemon XVI was born in Kyoto in 1981. After graduating from the Sculpture Department of Tokyo Zokei University in 2008, he completed the Ceramics Course at the Kyoto Traditional Arts and Crafts Technical Training Program in 2009 before continuing his studies in the United Kingdom. In 2011, he began working at the Raku family kiln, and in 2019 formally succeeded to the name of the sixteenth-generation Kichizaemon.
Guided originally by Sen no Rikyū, the lineage of Raku tea bowl makers began with the first-generation potter Chōjirō. For more than 450 years and across sixteen generations, the Raku family has continued to produce Raku ware as the archetypal tea bowls used in the practice of the tea ceremony. As one of the hereditary artisan lineages known as the Senke Jisshoku—the ten official craft families supporting the Sen schools of tea—the family bears the name “Raku,” granted by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, while each successive head inherits the name Kichizaemon.
Raku ware is formed without the use of a potter’s wheel, instead shaped by hand and carved with a spatula-like tool known as a hera. The works are fired at relatively low temperatures ranging from approximately 750 to 1100 degrees Celsius. Among the best-known forms are aka-raku, whose red coloration derives from the iron content of the clay, and kuro-raku, finished with a black glaze.