Wilmington College’s Peace Resource Center and Harcum Art Gallery will host an exhibit of ceramics created by the late Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Kita Kazuaki. His works speak to the existential threat of nuclear weapons and the potential destruction of humanity and the environment.
The exhibition, “Kita Kazuaki (1934-2012): Ceramics for the Nuclear Age,” runs from Aug. 6 through Oct. 11 weekdays, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and by special appointment coordinated by Curator Hal Shunk, emeritus professor of art. Harcum Gallery is located in the WC’s Boyd Cultural Arts Center, corner of College and Douglas Streets.
Kazuaki was a Japanese ceramicist from Nagano prefecture in central Japan. He experienced his childhood in wartime Japan, which later led him to reject nuclear weapons and military violence. His early ceramics in the 1970s were technical immersions in reproducing the iridescent Yohen glazes that characterized ceramics in the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279). However, in 1980, amidst the continuing nuclear arms race and the Cold War, Kazuaki began producing ceramic works that spoke to the existential threat of nuclear weapons and the potential destruction of humanity and the environment.
As Kazuaki wrote in 1982 in Till, Quest for World Peace, 3, “Every man, woman and child on the face of this Earth has the same basic, natural right to live in peace, but today the very meaning of this right is being questioned. I cannot help but feel that this is one of the most critical periods in the history of mankind. And so, it is with the hopes of uniting mankind in this common wish for peace that I have tried and will continue to try to use my art in order to cross national and racial boundaries and to reach every corner of the globe, where people pray silently for an end to human destruction.”
In 1987, Kazuaki was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his nuclear disarmament activities and art.
From 1982 to 1986, a prominent nuclear disarmament and peace activist, Milton Lowenthal, coordinated a North American tour of Kazuaki’s anti-nuclear ceramics. Lowenthal had become deeply immersed in the nuclear disarmament movement following the Three Mile Island Nuclear Disaster in 1979, which was 14 miles from his hometown of Harrisburg, PA.
The fourth exhibition on Kazuaki’s tour was held at the Wilmington College Peace Resource Center. At that time, Kazuaki donated two of his ceramics to the PRC’s Collection: a ceramic sculpture titled “Denunciation of Nuclear Death-Hiroshima and Nagasaki” (1982) and a small tea bowl.
In 2023, Lowenthal’s daughters, Hara Bouganim and Linda Lipschutz, donated a collection of 19 of Kazuaki’s works to the Peace Resource Center in honor of their father and his continual efforts toward global peace. These pieces comprise much of the Harcum Gallery exhibit.
PRC Director Dr. Tanya Maus said the exhibit is being presented in honor of Lowenthal’s “life and work of the nuclear disarmament peace activist.” She added, “We are grateful to Hara and Linda for ensuring this collection will live on into the future as a light of hope and refusal to accept a world of nuclear destruction.”
