Birth

Until his untimely death at the age of 65, Kumakura Junkichi was a major figure in the world of Japanese sculptural ceramics, an area in which he first developed an interest during the 1950s. He was the member of the Sodeisha, the avant-garde ceramicists group based in Kyoto, from 1957 on wards. Much of his work, of which this is an example from one of his more explicit periods, is unashamedly concerned with sexuality and eroticism. The directness of his imagery is that much more striking when seen in the context of the generally allusive work of his contemporaries.