1919-1992
male
living national treasure
After graduating from art school ad being admitted to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology’s industrial arts engineering training center, Fujimoto entered into an apprenticeship under Kato Hajime, and began producing works alongside Tomimoto Kenkichi as his pottery assistant in 1938.
Fujimoto won the Kofukaiten Kofukai Kogeisho Award in 1938, and after World War II exhibited works primarily in the various exhibitions held by the Japan Ceramics Society. Fujimoto won an award from the society as well as the silver prize from the International Academy of Ceramics in Geneva in 1956.
Furthermore, though Fujimoto for a time was a member of the avant-garde Sodeisha Society where he produced odjet d’art ceramics in addition to other kinds of pottery, from the mid 1960s he returned to more traditional styles, immersing himself in research of painted porcelain.
Developing works that feature the motifs of flowers and birds, painted with such realism that’s evocative power superseded that of Nihonga artists. In addition to this, he created unique techniques such as that of Yubyokasai wherein images are added to works before firing via colored glazes, and it was for these techniques that he was designated as a holder of the title Nationally Important Intangible Cultural Property (Living National Treasure) in 1986.
In the interim however, after assuming a position as an instructor at the Kyoto City University of Arts in 1956, he continued to dedicate himself to his own education and guidance of a new generation of artists at the school in Kyoto as well as at Tokyo University of the Arts until 1990 (ending his tenure as dean of Tokyo University of the Arts), while also winning awards such as the gold prize from the Japan Ceramics Society and a Medal of Honor from the Government of Japan with a dark blue ribbon in the same year. For his seal, he is fond of suing the Kuma or bear seal made by Kenkichi.
