The name Hazan comes from Mount Tsukuba in his home province. After being taught by Koun Takamura and others in the sculpture course of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, he became a teacher in the sculpture course of the Ishikawa Prefectural Industrial School. It was there that he first took up ceramics; in 1903 he resigned, moved to Tokyo, and built a workshop at Tabata. He made porcelain of high dignity with carefully worked form and colour, devised glazes of his own, and brought the technique of the carver into his vessels. Holding to the pride of an artist rather than a mere inheritor of tradition, he declined to be considered for designation as a Living National Treasure. He received the Order of Culture in 1953. “Vase with Rare Flower Design”, together with a work by Kozan Miyagawa, was the first ceramic of the modern period to be designated an Important Cultural Property. The joining of strength and softness — flowers drawn within a powerful form — may be called the mark of his work.