You've probably heard of Japan's quaint custom of designating some people as Living National Treasures. Usually it's applied to exponents of a traditional art, craft or performing art in their twilight years. Luckily, nobody has ever come up with the idea of "stealing" these national treasures. While this is reassuring, it also raises doubts about the authenticity of their "treasure" status. Maybe the designation is just a nice way of saying, "Thanks, granddad for all the nice (fill in blank) you've made over the years."

As with most bearers of the title, the "treasure" status of Mitsuo Masuda, the metal chaser who is the subject of paired exhibitions at the Crafts Gallery of the National Museum of Modern Art and Waseda University's Aizu Museum, came of the culmination of many years of selfless devotion to his craft rather than a drive for recognition.

This is immediately apparent when you enter the Crafts Gallery exhibition space. Masuda's works seem to emit a quiet, unshowy charisma, as if patiently waiting for you to come and discover them, rather than shout out their merits. When you first see the silver tea caddy "Yamase" ("North Wind") (1990) with its gilded deer motif, you notice that it is rather small and pretty, but what draws you closer is a sense of the object's density. It is then that you notice how exquisitely the background has been worked with keribori, so-called kicking engraving in which a chisel is employed to "kick" the surface, creating a grainy texture that adds a sense of depth and reality to the stylized scene.