Talk:Akio Takamori

article rewritten 2023 - archive of 2017 poorly referenced article
It would be more difficult to tease out legitimate information than to start over, so I started over. Citable material can be added back in. WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 01:05, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Akio Takamori (1950 – January 11, 2017) was a Japanese-American ceramic sculptor and was a faculty member at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington.

Biography
Takamori was born in Nobeoka, Miyazaki, Japan in 1950 October 11. The son of an obstetrician/gynecologist who ran a clinic, Takamori was exposed to a wide range of people from an early age. At home, his father’s extensive library of both art and medical texts became a fascination for Takamori, who relished everything from Picasso reproductions to anatomical charts.

Takamori’s interest in the arts persisted into early adulthood and upon his graduation from the Musashino Art College in 1971, he apprenticed to a master folk potter at Koishiwara, Fukuoka, Kyushu – Koishiwara ware. While learning the craft of industrial ceramics in a factory setting, he saw a traveling exhibition of contemporary ceramic art from Latin America, Canada, and the United States. Blown away by what he describes as the “antiauthoritarian” quality of the work, Takamori began to question his future as an industrial potter. When renowned American ceramist Ken Ferguson visited the pottery, the two had an immediate rapport and Ferguson encouraged Takamori go to the United States and study with him at the Kansas City Art Institute.

In 1974 Takamori made the move to the United States, receiving his B.F.A. from the Kansas City Art Institute and later attending Alfred University in New York for his M.F.A. After working as a resident artist at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana, he moved to Seattle, Washington in 1993, where he took his current teaching position as associate professor of the ceramics department.

Akio Takamori died of pancreatic cancer on January 11, 2017.

Work
Takamori’s evolution as an artist began as he worked with Ferguson to break free of the constraints of industrial pottery and find new ways to express himself in clay. Since those first years at the Kansas City Art Institute his work has changed greatly, but it has always been figurative, based on the human body and expressive of human emotion and sensuality.

In the 1980s, Takamori worked innovatively with the vessel form and its structure, creating flat envelope shaped pots formed from slabs. Once the ceramic piece was finished, he would paint onto the surface adding details of the figures that he was representing. These figures often explored human relationships. His work in this format lasted about ten years.

In the mid-1990s a visit to the European Ceramic Work Center in the Netherlands resulted in a shift from vessels back to an early interest in sculpture and the figure. Takamori created groupings of standing figural sculptures. The figures portray historical characters, contemporary society and rural villagers recalled from the artist's childhood in Japan.

Most of Takamori’s work has been strongly influenced by his Japanese heritage. He has translated traditional Japanese prints into three-dimensional porcelain sculptures, he recreated his hometown in Japan from memory using clay, and he has translated Peter Bruegel’s paintings into sculptures of Japanese people.

Takamori collaborated with Master Printer Mike Sims, of The Lawrence Lithography Workshop in Kansas City, Missouri, to create a series of prints that combine digital images of his ceramic sculptures with more traditional lithography printing techniques.

Awards
2011         United States Artists 2006         Joan Mitchell Foundation

2003         Flintridge Foundation Awards for Visual Artists

2001         Virginia A. Groot Award

1996         Fellowship at Keramisch Werkcentrum, 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands

1993         Fellowship at Keramisch Werkcentrum, 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands

1992         National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artists Fellowship Grant

1988         National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artists Fellowship Grant

1986         National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artists Fellowship Grant

Museum collections
American Craft Museum, New York City

Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, MT

Arizona State University Art Museum, Nelson Fine Arts Center, Tempe

The Arkansas Arts Center Decorative Arts Museum, Little Rock

Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton FL

Boston Athenaeum, Boston, MA

Carnegie Institute Art Museum, Pittsburgh

Hallmark Art Collection, Kansas City, MO

Kansas City Art Institute, MO

Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, KS

The Kinsey Institute, OH

The Kinsey Institute, Bloomington, IN

Kruithuis Museum, 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

The Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art, Shigaraki, Japan

The Museum of Ceramic Arts, Alfred, NY

National Museum of History, Taipei, Republic of China

Racine Art Museum, Racine, WI

Rhode Island School of Design Museum

Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA

Spencer Museum of Art, Laurence, KS

Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Republic of China

Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, Canada

Max Romeo Museum of science and discovery

Selected solo exhibitions
2017    James Harris Gallery, Seattle

2013    Red Star Studios & Belger Arts Center, Kansas City

2004    Frank Lloyd Gallery, Santa Monica

2003    Garth Clark Gallery, New York

2002    Grover/Thurston Gallery, Seattle

2001    Frank Lloyd Gallery, Santa Monica

2000    Garth Clark Gallery, New York

1999    Grover/Thurston Gallery, Seattle

1998    Frank Lloyd Gallery, Santa Monica, Robert Else Gallery, California State University, Sacramento

1997    Cohen/Berkowitz Gallery, Kansas City, Missouri, Trax Gallery, Berkeley, Garth Clark Gallery, New York

1996    Tempe Arts Center, Arizona, Hiestand Galleries/Miami University, Oxford, Ohio

1995    Habitat/Shaw Gallery, Pontiac, Michigan Garth Clark Gallery, Los Angeles

1994    Garth Clark Gallery, Kansas City, Missouri, Garth Clark Gallery, Los Angeles

1993    Garth Clark Gallery, New York

1992    Garth Clark Gallery, Los Angeles, Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, Pittsburgh

1991    Garth Clark Gallery, New York

1990    Garth Clark Gallery, Los Angeles

1989    Garth Clark Gallery, New York, Everson Museum, Syracuse, New York

1988    Garth Clark Gallery, Los Angeles

1987    Garth Clark Gallery, New York

1986    Garth Clark Gallery, New York Esther Saks, Chicago

1985    Garth Clark Gallery, Los Angeles

1984    Garth Clark Gallery, New York, The Morgan Gallery, Los Angeles

1983    Garth Clark Gallery, Los Angeles

1980    Himawari Gallery, Miyazaki, Japan

Books
Akio Takamori: Ceramic sculpture, by Akio Takamori, Garth Clark Gallery (2000)

Between Clouds of Memory Akio Takamori, a Mid-career Survey, by Akio Takamori, et al. Univ of Washington Press, Oct 30 2005