Jun Kaneko

1942Born Nagoya, Japan

EDUCATION

1964Painting, Chouinard Institute of Art and California Institute of Art, Los Angeles, California

1966University of California, Berkeley, California

1970-1971MFA Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, California

PRIMARY WORK EXPERIENCE

1972-1973Faculty, University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire

1974Scripps College, Claremont, California

1973-1975Professor, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island

1979-1986Head of Ceramics Department, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

APPRENTICESHIPS AND RESIDENCIES

1964Independent study, Jerry Rothman's Studio, Paramount, California

1967Archie Bray Foundation Fellowship, Helena, Montana

1982Omaha Brickworks, Omaha, Nebraska

BIOGRAPHY

Jun Kaneko is known for his monumental ceramic sculptures in the form of heads with expressionless faces or boldly colored, ovoid, vertical, sculptural forms called dangos (dumplings in Japanese). These enormous forms are a testament to Kaneko's skills in handling stoneware on a colossal scale. In addition to the heads and dangos Kaneko has created a number of tile murals, rectangular wall plaques, and large ovoid platter forms. He has also worked with glass, bronze, fiber, and has designed sets and costumes for opera. Kaneko lso an accomplished draftsman and painter.   

Kaneko came to the United States from Japan in 1963 at the age of twenty-one. The following year he enrolled at Chouinard Institute of Art where he studied with Ralph Bacerra and worked in the Los Angeles studio of Jerry Rothman. In 1964 he entered the University of California, Berkeley studying with Peter Voulkos and in 1970 Kaneko entered Claremont Graduate School where he studied with Paul Soldner.  

In 1982, Kaneko, then Head of the Ceramics Department, Cranbrook Academy, was invited for a special commission at the Omaha Brickworks and to take advantage of their thirty-five-foot diameter beehive kiln. Here he set out to make his first four dangos; oval-shaped, seven feet long and six feet high. The complex construction consisted of the domes and three thick quadrilateral slabs. The largest project completed on site, the dangos took six weeks to construct, three months to dry and over thirty-five days to fire. Kaneko painted the forms with brightly colored slips in decorative geometric patterns and stripes. When completed in 1983 these sculptures were placed at the Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, Missouri.

An interview with Jun Kaneko conducted May 23 and 24, 2005 by Mary McInnes, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America is available at:
http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-jun-kaneko-12628.