The 20th century had seen the rise of the named artist - experimenting, adapting and innovating to place lacquer studio crafts within an international context. A limiting factor, that remains true today, was the absence of an equivalent western artistic medium - depriving Japanese artists of the type of cross-cultural, international debate that occurs in shared media such as ceramics or glassware. Notwithstanding, the best of today’s younger generation is increasingly pushing the boundaries in both form and technique to create work of extraordinary quality and intellectual challenge.