Art in the Garden
Fukami: A Distant View
The Porcelain Sculpture of Sueharu Fukami
with Photographs by Jean Vollum
Fall 2013

A Distant View: The Porcelain Sculptureof Sueharu Fukami

The works of Sueharu Fukami are inspired by thenatural world. The delicate pale-blue forms of
Fukami’s elegant porcelain sculpture appear to exist,
in the words of the artist, “in the place where the sky
and the sea meet, the ‘something’ that is heading out
into the ocean’s horizon.”

Everything that is beautiful isalways in balance. With balance,
you get a sense of peace.

Considered one of the most distinguished ceramicartists of his generation, Fukami came to international
attention when he won the Grand Prize in theprestigious International Ceramic Exhibition atFaenza, Italy in 1985. He is also one of the only artists
to win the Japan Ceramics Society Gold Medal
Award twice. His work is in private collections andmuseums all over the world: the National Museum ofModern Art, Tokyo; the British Museum; the Victoria
and Albert Museum; the Metropolitan Museum ofArt; Brooklyn Museum; the Art Institute of Chicago;and many others including the Portland Art Museum.

J E A NV O L L U M

Sora ni (In the Sky), Sueharu Fukami. Photograph by Takashi Hatakeyama.

Untitled photograph, Ice Cycles Series byJean Vollum

Twenty-four works by Fukami will be on view—twelve from the artist’s
studio in Fushimi, Kyoto, and twelve on loan from private collectors.
The exhibition also features a selection of nine color photographs by
Fukami’s friend, the late Jean Vollum (1927-2007), one of Portland’s
greatest philanthropists and patrons of the arts.

I seek to capture the place where the sky and the sea

PH OTO G R A PH S BY J EA N VOLLU M

meet, the ‘something’ that is heading out into theThe late Jean Vollum’s luminous Ice Cycles series of photographs
capture the majestic and yet fragile world of the polar ice floes ofAntarctica. Jean Vollum was involved in the arts for most of her life,practicing calligraphy, weaving, and eventually photography. She
made a number of expeditions to photograph polar ice, which became
her passion. “Vollum’s images are taken from a Zodiac boat pulled soclose to the frozen cliffs, the resulting blue and white prints look likecolor field paintings cold enough to touch,” wrote art critic D.K. Row
in The Oregonian. “The cool, tough beauty of their composition offers
hints of her spirit.”

ocean’s horizon.
S U E H A R U

F U K A M I

Fukami is the sixth child in a family of potters who
produced functional tableware in the ceramicproducing district around Sennyuji Temple southeastof Kyoto. His contemporary sculpture has a firmbase in traditional ceramic training and techniques,bringing the challenging medium of porcelain into
the world of abstract art.
According to art historian Shinya Maezaki, Fukami’swork “is best known for his luminous pale-blue,
or seihakuji, glazed abstract porcelains that aretechnical and aesthetic feats of clay.” The precision,delicacy and sheer scale of the forms for which heis known is possible due to a unique slip-castingprocess he developed that stretches the limits ofpossibility in porcelain sculpture.

2A RT IN THE GA RDEN

Jean Vollum was an avid collector of Fukami’s work, and several of thepieces from her collection, now in the collections of her five sons, are onview in this exhibition. Introduced by a mutual acquaintance, Fukami
and Vollum instantly understood their shared aesthetic. “Everythingthat is beautiful is always in balance. With balance, you get a senseof peace,” Jean once said. “Every time I can bring beauty into the lives
around me, I’m building a little peace.”

Kiyoki no Omoi V (Pure Imagination V), Sueharu Fukami.
Photograph by Takashi Hatakeyama.

That spirit, shared between two artist-friends across the Pacific, madepossible this fitting conclusion to the Art in the Garden exhibition
series for Garden’s 50th anniversary.

FA L L 2 0 1 33

S P ON S OR E D BY :The Jean Vollum Fund of the Vanguard Charitable Endowment; The
Japan Foundation, Los Angeles; Meyer Memorial Trust; the James F.
and Marion L. Miller Foundation; the Maybelle Clark Macdonald Fund;
The Collins Foundation; the Wessinger Foundation; the Rose E. Tucker
Charitable Trust; and the Jackson Foundation.

S PEC I A L T H A N K S T O :Patricia and Steve Vollum, Ann and Dan Vollum, TC and Charles Vollum,
Dorie and Larry Vollum, Travers and Vasik Polak, Susan and Greg FitzGerald, and Richard Anderson for their generous loan of work to theexhibition; and to Sueharu Fukami for sharing work directly from his
studio in the Sennyuji district outside of Kyoto.

Diane Durston
Curator of Culture, Art, and Education
ddurston@japanesegarden.org

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