| ARTIST BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: | Noboru Kubo was a fourth-generation potter who could easily have had a highly successful career in his native Japan, but who chose to broaden his artistic horizons by practising in Canada. In early childhood, he studied with his father, Komataro Kubo; Noboru later graduated from the Kyoto Industrial Arts School (1964). After his father’s death, he taught and worked in his father’s studio, continuing the production of traditional functional pieces. Student friends invited him to visit North America, and he spent 1969-70 holding workshops and exhibitions across the continent, stopping to work for a few months in several cities, including Hinton, Alberta, where he studied with Toru Hasegawa. He held a solo exhibit in Edmonton, sponsored by the Alberta Government. Returning permanently to Canada in 1971, he became an instructor at the Edmonton Potters’ Guild and at the University of Alberta Students’ Union Building. During the 1970s he exhibited at various Edmonton spaces, including the Lefebvre Gallery, Latitude 53, West End Gallery, and the Edmonton Art Gallery. He set up a private studio, and from 1976 on, he taught sculpture and ceramics for many years at the Faculty of Extension in Corbett Hall.
Kubo wished to establish his own style, not simply repeat family tradition. His functional ware was inspired by his heritage, and some pieces were based on the folk pottery made by his grandfathers, revealing the traces of the potter’s hands. This traditional preoccupation with functional beauty was balanced by his non-functional pieces, which experimented with vase shapes, glazes and decoration. “Town Council” was a series of “male”-shaped vases, topped with cowboy-hat-type collars, seemingly playing with elements of Alberta’s culture. Kubo was also inspired by nature – his “Forest” ceramic sculpture (2002), for example, resembled twinned tree trunks, dappled with green-glazed foliage.
Kubo’s pieces have been given out as official gifts overseas by the Alberta Premier. His works were purchased by Alberta House, London, and he is represented in private, corporate and government collections in Canada, Japan, Great Britain and the United States.
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