In 1932, Yu Fujiwara was born in Honami, Bizen City, the eldest son of Kei Fujiwara, a Bizen Pottery artist who later became a Living National Treasure.Like his father, he...
In 1932, Yu Fujiwara was born in Honami, Bizen City, the eldest son of Kei Fujiwara, a Bizen Pottery artist who later became a Living National Treasure.Like his father, he spent his impressionable youth absorbed in literature and music. After graduating from university in 1980, he once worked for a publishing company, but eventually entered the world of Bizen ware under his father's tutelage, and became a living national treasure in 1996. He is mature but free. His works have a gentle, not angular, gracefulness, and an element that allows the viewer to sense something in them, rather than self-assertion. His works, like the sensitivity contained within him, have been described in various ways. His work has been variously described as "pottery that evokes warmth, gentleness, strength, and generosity. ...Pottery that makes you feel mentally warmed by its presence. He said that this is the mission of a potter. Surprisingly, it is not known that he had a handicap.He was blind in his right eye (0.03) and completely blind in his left eye. It was his father who gave him a visionary path. He resolutely recommended him to go to a normal school, which he was told was impossible, as well as to a university in Tokyo. This decision fostered in him a strong sensitivity and a sense of justice, which made him "feel the love of others three or five times more than ordinary people, but at the same time, ordinary things make me angry three or five times more than ordinary things. In junior high and high school, he was a member of the newspaper club and head of the literature department, and was passionate and devoted to literature and music. After graduating from college, Fujio Koyama told Yu, who was working as a magazine reporter for a Tokyo-based publishing company called Misuzu Shobo, to "go back to Bizen and become Bizen's soil. He was his teacher of ceramic aesthetics. His father's friend and mentor in the philosophy of ceramics was Kitaoji Rosanjin. When he saw a vessel that Yu was making with a particular shape in mind, Rosanjin pinched the still-soft mouth of the vessel. It was the moment he learned "chic. After going out into the world, Rosanjin deepened his friendship with people from various fields such as Kawakita Handeishi, Fujimoto Yoshimichi, Tamura Koichi, Urasenke Iemoto Sen Genshitsu, actresses, TV producers, poets, and chefs from various countries because he admittedly was a food lover, and deepened his aesthetic sense. He held solo exhibitions in many countries, and when he was a visiting professor at Dartmouth College with Shiko Munakata, he taught how to love pottery. His works were exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and other museums in the United States, and were even included in the British Museum. He describes his own view of pottery as follows. He said, "I do not easily accept the changes of the times, even if some say it is too old or too traditional.