Exhibit Hall

Exhibition Hours: 10:00 am to 6:00 pm (Hours subject to change during special events. Refer to niwa.org)

The Japanese Friendship Garden is delighted to showcase Maurice Kawashima’s private collection. The exhibition is open to the public from March to June 2023. Maurice Kawashima is a passionate collector of fine and decorative arts. His interest in ceramics reaches beyond Wedgwood's Fairyland, both into masterworks from his homeland Japan and as far back as the 18th century with distinguished examples of Meissen.

 Maurice Kawashima was born in 1936 in Kawaguchi City, Saitama Prefecture, Japan. He earned an associate degree in applied science from the Fashion Institute of Technology (part of the State University of New York/SUNY system), and a certificate from Parsons School of Design in New York. Immediately after graduating from Parsons, the Fashion Institute of Technology offered him a full-time teaching position, and across the years which followed he became the first Japanese-born person to be granted a full professorship with tenure at the institute. 

Alongside his teaching, Kawashima achieved distinction as chief designer for Daimaru Inc., in Japan; as a designer for Elizabeth Arden Sales Corp., in New York; and as an assistant designer for Pauline Trigere, in New York. In Japan, he established the Safari Line for Suzaya Company and established his own fashion company, Masaaki New York. He also authored several books, including the Fundamentals of Men’s Wear Fashion Design, Standard Text of Pattern Design, and Men’s Outerwear Design—Fundamentals of Pattern, and holds three patents for special measuring instruments used in the fashion industry. He became an avid art collector as well. He purchased his first two pieces — antique porcelain — while in Japan to deliver a lecture. Today he has some 23 collections, a variety that includes not only Japanese ceramics from the 8th century through the present, but English Fairyland porcelain of the 1920s, and English and American bronzes, among others.

The Japanese Friendship Garden is grateful to both Maurice Kawashima and Steve Knesz for sharing their priceless collection and support during the exhibit installation.