Screw, 1974
Stoneware, 19"x 6"
Mineo Mizuno was born in Gifu Prefecture, Japan, in 1944. From 1966 to 1968 he studied ceramics at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, where he was exposed to the almost machine-perfect, "fetish finish" style of the West Coast potters under Ralph Bacerra. He worked as a ceramics designer for Interpace China Corporation in Glendale, California, for ten years, establishing his own studio in 1978. In 1981 he received a National Endowment for the Arts Award. His work has been shown throughout the United States and Japan and is included in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and the Hokkaido Museum of Art, Sapporo, Japan. Profoundly influenced by Josef Albers, Mizuno explores color and texture through various glazes and gestural brushstrokes in his exquisitely crafted pieces, which he sometimes combines into series for added compositional effect.
*Excerpted from Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc.