Hajime Gen Kozuru, born in 1938, comes from a long line of Japanese ceramic artists specialising in Agano ware in Fukuoka.
For more than thirty years, Kozuru has divided his time between his studio in Fukuoka and an 1847 farmhouse and studio in Topsfield, Massachusetts.
In November 2008, Kozuru celebrated his seventieth birthday, a milestone marked by the Art Complex Museum in Duxbury, Massachusetts, with a solo exhibition. The exhibition brought together works from the museum’s collection, which numbers more than thirty pieces, and new creations.

Throughout his career, Kozuru has exhibited in numerous museums and galleries in Japan and the United States and has received many awards for his artistic achievements. He has also contributed to the study of Agano ware through publications on the excavations and research he conducted at historic Agano wood-fired kiln sites. His work has deepened understanding of the history, techniques and cultural context of this ceramic tradition.

His work draws inspiration from his surroundings, combining elements of New England with those of his native Japan. In 2020, the Fukuoka Mitsukoshi Gallery organised a retrospective devoted to the Kozuru family, highlighting the continuity of the ceramic tradition through his daughter, who now carries on the family legacy while working in both ceramics and glass.
57 × 11.3 cm
Signed tomobako.