Nobutake Ōkōchi

was a Japanese art historian, critic and businessman who served as the fifth president of the Japan Ceramics Association from 1984 to 1990. Before that, he was also a sympathiser for the cause of the Japanese Communist Party.

Biography Although he did not enroll in a college or university, Ōkōchi was a member of the Urawa Higher literary group within the Shinjinkai. He studied at Tokyo Imperial University. Under the pseudonym of , he worked for the , a Japanese theatre dedicated to countering the bourgeoisie, in 1927, along with other people. In 1929, Ōkōchi, along with Kiyoshi Miki and others, formed the , in which he was the secretary general. In 1930, he solicited the fund for the cause of the Japanese Communist Party, for which Miki contributed to. One year later, he was also the secretary general of the . He worked with other left-wing groups on the evolution of capitalism in the second part of .

During World War II, he worked for Riken as an executive in the Riken Konzern. After the Riken Konzern was disbanded, he began to study the history of ceramics. While publishing works on ceramics, he primarily published under the names of , or . Ōkōchi supervised the opening of the Kakiden Gallery in 1978. He served as the president of the Japan Ceramics Association from 1984, succeeding Kō Segawa, until his death in 1990.

Personal life Ōkōchi was the eldest son of Viscount Masatoshi Ōkōchi, the third director of Riken. His younger brother was Nobuhiro Ōkōchi. He was the first husband of actress Shizue Kawarazaki.

Ancestry