Join us Monday, 12 February 2024 at 2PM EST for a conversation with Pucker Gallery artist Hideaki Miyamura, Artist and Educator Franz Nicolay, Brattleboro Museum Curator Emerita, Mara Williams, and Gallery Director Bernard Pucker.
This event will share responses and questions about the exceptional porcelain works by Hideaki Miyamura. After more than 20 years of working in clay, he has evolved into a major ceramic artist. His elegant forms are greatly enhanced with an ever-growing selection of glazes that produce sparkling works.
The exhibition Simple/Complex is on view at Pucker Gallery from 3 February through 17 March 2024.
Hideaki Miyamura was born in 1955 in Niigata, Japan, and traveled to the United States to study art history at Western Michigan University. In 1987, after college, he returned to Japan to pursue his interest in ceramics as an apprentice with master potter Shurei Miura in Yamanashi. Stemming from his interest in rare ancient Chinese tea bowl glazes, Miyamura seeks to create glazes that have a three dimensional quality and convey purity and peacefulness. His vessels are pristine, disarmingly simple, contemplative objects whose finishes reflect the panoply of the natural world— geologic phenomena, star-filled nights, undulating ocean waves, and fiery sunsets. His work is included in numerous public collections, including the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Franz Nicolay has been an artist and arts educator in New Hampshire for over 45 years. His specific areas of creative work are in ceramics, photography, writing, and wood sculpture. His areas of long-term investigation are in visual literacy, narrative, and expression, resulting from the creative process itself. Franz was also the director of the Edwards Art Gallery at Holderness School for many years prior to his retirement from teaching. In this position, Franz curated annual art exhibitions from Pucker Gallery's extensive collection of ceramics, painting, and photography. Franz has degrees in Fine Art from Lesley University/Art Institute of Boston (MFA) and St. Lawrence university (BA). He designed his house based on the golden ratio, and he maintains a studio practice in Center Sandwich, NH. Franz has exhibited widely and has work in numerous public and private collections.
Mara Williams assumed Emerita status in 2021, after curating exhibits at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center for thirty-three years. Her area of expertise is modern and contemporary art. Recent solo exhibitions include: Gathering Light: The Art of Stephen Hannock; Wolf Kahn—Landscape of Light; Secrets by Gloria Garfinkel; Andy Warhol—Selections from the Jon Gould Collection. Group shows have included the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Janet Fish, Mary Frank, Keith Haring, David Hockney, Maya Lin, James McGarrell, David Nash, Robert Rauschenberg, Ursula von Ridingsvard, Michael Singer, Tseng Kwong Chi, and Barbara Zucker, as well as a host of regional and emerging talent. As a partner in Arts Bridge LLC, Williams leads exhibition teams for institutions developing new large-scale museum projects. She led a team at Norwich University to conceive and build the inaugural exhibits and media productions at the Sullivan Museum & History Center; she was the exhibition developer and project manager for the Vermont Historical Society's interactive exhibit and film, Freedom & Unity: One Ideal, Many Stories; she developed Bravo! A Century of Theatre in Fairfield County; and a number of exhibits for the Vermont Folklife Center. She holds an A.B. in theatre from Boston College; an MFA in museology from Syracuse University and has completed doctoral course work and passed comprehensives in comparative arts at New York University. She is Chair of the Wolf Kahn Foundation. She has served as chair of the Vermont Arts Council and as a board member of the New England Museum Association, as well as three terms on the Senate Curatorial Advisory Committee for the U.S. Capitol.
Bernie Pucker is the director of Pucker Gallery, which he founded with his wife, Sue, on Boston's historic Newbury Street in 1967. Pucker Gallery represents over fifty artists from around the world, presenting approximately ten exhibitions annually, often paired with artist talks, virtual “WebinARTs” and Gallery receptions. Bernie is currently a Board Member at the Japan Society, Boston, and the Jewish Publication Society. He also serves on the Leadership Council for Facing History and Ourselves as well as the Artistic Advisory Board for the Terezin Music Foundation. Previously, he has served as President of Solomon Schechter Day School, President of the Newbury Street League, and Board Member for the Friends of Copley Square and The Unity Project, among others. Bernie received his MA in Modern Jewish History from Brandeis University and his BA in History and English Literature from Columbia College.