HANFORD, CA.- Active for over 40 years, Fukami’s early and rare stoneware sculptures are testimony of the young potter's experiments, but today he is internationally known for his celebrated pale-blue glazed porcelains. Collected by at least 47 museums world-wide, Fukami can be considered to be the most successful living Japanese artist of any medium.

Since 1967, when he was 20 years old, Fukami’s artworks have been exhibited at numerous exhibitions in Japan and abroad. Since 1969, he regularly won prizes for his work, including the Grand Prize at the prestigious 43rd Faenza International Ceramic Exhibition in Italy in 1985. In 1997, Fukami received the Kyoto Prefecture Culture Prize and in 2008, was appointed by the City of Kyoto as a ‘Person of Cultural Merit.’

This exhibition features a broad selection of Fukami’s most significant sculptures, ranging from his earliest works until his most recent. Though his glaze is inspired by Chinese porcelains of the tenth to thirteenth centuries, his abstract sculptures testify to his impressive inventiveness and sensitivity with regard to form. With heights of over 7 feet (2 m), his sculptures are unusual for work in porcelain because, porcelain being a much denser material than stoneware, large objects are extremely difficult to create.

On the occasion of this exhibition, a book is being published that illustrates not only the works selected for this exhibition but provides a detailed account of Fukami Sueharu’s entire oeuvre.

Curated by Dr. Andreas Marks, Director & Chief Curator and Cora Würmell, East-Asian Ceramics Curator, State Art Collections, Dresden, Germany.

The exhibition is on view at the Clark Center for Japanese Art & Culture through July 30.