Teruo Hara

Teruo Hara (1929-1985), potter, sculptor and designer, was born in Chiba, Japan in 1929. A graduate of Tokyo Kyoiku University, he taught in Japan and at the Corcoran School of Art and Mary Washington College beginning in 1963. During the 1950s he organized the influential Architecture and Craft Group in Kyoto and was involved with the Sodeisha Group, an avant-garde movement. His ceramics and sculpture began to receive international attention through invitationals, and in 1958 he won the Grand Prize at the Brussels World Fair. In 1959 he toured the United States under the Fine Arts Committee and American Craftsman Council. He exhibited at the Smithsonian in 1961. He soon after established a studio in this country and began teaching. For the next two decades he continued to teach, design and exhibit his work. His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the country.

In 1981 he completed a major residential design commission on Martha’s Vineyard, "Chogetsu." Vital to the design and execution of the plan was the merger of the inside and the outside spaces. His concept was to blend the site’s rolling hills, trees, rocks and ocean – to distill them and draw their expansiveness into the house and gardens themselves. The name “Chogetsu” loosely translated means “moon and tide”, a central concept in both Japanese swordsmanship and Zen practice. The moon on and in the water may be seen as a metaphor for enlightenment.