JB Blunk, c. 1968. Courtesy of JB Blunk Estate.
In a movement filled with independent-minded individualists, no one was more self-defined than J. B. Blunk. His creative journey began in Japan, after he had demobilized from service in the Korean War. A chance encounter with sculptor Isamu Noguchi led to an apprenticeship with a traditional Japanese potter, still today a highly unusual opportunity for an American, and then virtually unprecedented. When he returned to the United States, Blunk settled in California, where he resolved to set up a craft studio, initially thinking he would devote himself to ceramics. In Inverness, north of San Francisco, he built himself an extraordinary house, where he and his family lived in a spirit of total autonomy.
He did make pottery, using locally dug clays, but what really made his reputation was a series of massive seating forms and sculptures in carved timber, and later, stone. Among these were The Planet (1969), now at the Oakland Museum of California, and The Ark (1969), the work included in Objects: USA, which survives in ruinous glory, having spent several decades outdoors at the Prairie School in Racine, Wisconsin. Blunk also made smaller-scale works, including some that suggest the inspiration of African carved seats. Even these exhibit his sculptural gifts in compressed form. He gave potent shape to living material like no one else.
Stool #7 in redwood. Designed and made by J. B. Blunk, USA, 1971.
13.75” L x 11.5” W x 17” H
34.9cm L x 29.2cm W x 43.2cm H
ST727
Courtesy of JB Blunk Estate