The slim pickings of the holiday season is upon us.
Arne Jacobsen, Nissen bar caddy, and Ted Saito hanging ceramic sculpture.
I sold the Saito sculpture and the person who bought it asked me for more information on him. I knew the basics. He was a San Diego artist who exhibited worked in a few mediums and was a member of the San Diego Art Guild. Saito was most-known as a potter. He exhibited quite often, including out of state, as evident in the above announcement for a 1985 show of Japanese-American artists in Palm Beach, Florida.
I decided to do some digging and found out more about his early life. Ted Akira Saito was born on November 14, 1936 in Santa Maria, California, the eldest child of Tat and Frances Saito and grandson of Tanjiro and Kiku Saito. He and his family were incarcerated at Gila River at a Japanese-American internment camp during WWII. This was a horrific experience fellow artists like Ruth Asawa, George Nakashima and Isamu Noguchi we also subjected to.
Saito received his BA from The University of Colorado in 1959 and joined the Air Force Academy. He would then go onto earn a MA from San Diego State in 1964. His focus on ceramics came in the late 1960's. His work previously focused on woodblock prints and metal sculpture.
Image: Santa Barbara News-Press, 1961
Along with being a professional artist showing his work both locally and across the country, Saito taught at numerous institutions in San Diego. This included colleges and high schools.
Source: The Los Angeles Times, 1961
He went from working in stoneware to Post-Modern hand-built slab forms in the 1980s and 90's, as seen here.
Ted passed away on July 31, 1994.
Image: Syracuse Herald-Journal - Wed, Nov 15, 1989