John Takehara

Japanese/American Ceramicist
Japanese/American, (1929–2009)

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Takehara was born in 1929, in Sowan, South Korean, but spent his childhood in his family’s ancestral home of Jikamuro, Japan. After World War II, Takehara moved to the United States to live with relatives in Hawaii where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in education and later received his Master’s degree in Graphic Design from the University of California, Los Angeles. Fatefully, while Takehara was teaching two-dimensional design at Montana State University, Bozeman his colleague, Frances Senska, fostered his interests in clay and encouraged him to apply for a residency at The Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana. These experiences had a profound impact on the direction of John’s artistic endeavors, leading him to pursue the medium as a potter and build the ceramics program during his tenure at Boise State University, Idaho. John passed away in 2009, but his legacy remains due to his contributions to the development of Pacific Northwest ceramics.