Miye Matsukata

Miye MatsukataMatsukata's first name is also cited as Miyeko

Early life and education Matsukata was born on January 27, 1922 in Tokyo to Shokuma Matsukata and Miyo Matsukata . One of six siblings, Matsukata was the younger sister of Haru M. Reischauer, a writer, and Tane Matsukata, an educator and founder of Nishimachi International School. The maternal granddaughter of the silk importer Arai Ryoichiro, through her father Matsukata was a member of the Matsukata family.

Career Matsukata designed jewelry in Boston, and established Atelier Janiye (sometimes written as Atelier Janiyé) in the 1949, co-owned with Naomi Katz Harris and Janice Whipple Williams after graduating. In 1958, the group association disbanded and Matsukata took sole ownership of Atelier Janiye. James Hubbard was the business manager and agent, while Nancy Michel, Alexandra Watkins, and Yoshiko Yamamoto created the jewelry based on designs by Matsukata. She taught several classes at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine in 1976.

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. "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."

Personal life Matsukata was sister-in-law of the diplomat Edwin O. Reischauer through her sister Hara.

On February 16, 1981, Matsukata died at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston aged 59. Her papers, including sketchbooks, journals, business records, correspondence, and photographs, are in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. until they retired in 2014. 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.