Urade Katsuhiko

Urade Katsuhiko was born in 1955 in Wajima City, Ishikawa Prefecture, the heart of Japan's Wajima-nuri lacquerware tradition. He began studying under makie artist Shoichiro Tazaki in 1973 and, in 1979, was first selected for the Japan Traditional Art Crafts Exhibition, the country's leading juried showcase for traditional crafts. In 1982 he graduated from the Makie Department of the Ishikawa Prefectural Wajima Urushi Art Technical Training Center, and from 1983 he was continuously selected for the Ishikawa Traditional Crafts Exhibition.

Through the 1990s and 2000s he built a steady record of prefectural and national craft awards, and he served as a trainee in the Important Intangible Cultural Property "Hyomon" Successors Training Courses, including the second course in 1994. In 2004 he was recognized as a member of the Important Intangible Cultural Property Wajima-nuri Technique Preservation Society. He has also passed his skills on directly, teaching as a lecturer at the Ishikawa Prefectural Wajima Urushi Art Technical Training Center and serving as a part time lecturer at Kanazawa Gakuin University from 2000 to 2004. He is a full member of the Japan Kogei Association, with an executive board role in its Ishikawa branch, and a member of the Japan Cultural Property Lacquer Association. Available sources describe him consistently in the present tense, working from his studio in Wajima, with no obituary, memorial notice, or death record identified in Japanese or English sources as of 2026.

No verbatim quotations from named critics in major art publications were located for Urade Katsuhiko. His recognition instead comes through Japan's juried craft exhibition system, including awards from the Japan Kogei Association and an Ishikawa Governor's award, and through inclusion in a 2026 curated lacquer and ceramics exhibition at Wako's Seiko House Hall in Ginza, Tokyo. That placement signals standing within Japan's high end retail and craft circuit even without coverage in the mainstream art press.

No confirmed auction sale, work title, price, house, or date, has been located for Urade Katsuhiko across the Japanese and international auction sources searched as of 2026-07-15. His output appears to move primarily through the primary market: juried craft exhibitions, department store exhibition halls, and gallery group shows, rather than through the secondary auction market that supports most artists profiled on this site. Gallery Japan lists a retail price range of USD 13,000 to 19,000 for his lacquer works, but this figure comes from a single source and has not been corroborated by another gallery, dealer, or sale record, so it should be treated as indicative rather than definitive. His most visible recent market moment is an exhibition placement: inclusion in a curated lacquer and ceramics exhibition at Wako's Seiko House Hall in Ginza, Tokyo, in early 2026.

Public price history for this artist is sparse to the point that any single figure, including the retail range cited by one gallery, should be corroborated before being relied upon. There is no catalogue raisonne, so authentication depends on the artist's own workshop and on his documented institutional memberships, notably the Japan Kogei Association and the Wajima-nuri Technique Preservation Society. Because there is no meaningful auction comparable set, collectors evaluating his work should weight primary market channels, gallery listings, exhibition sales, and juried exhibition history, over any attempt to build a price trend from public sale data.