Akio Takamori died of cancer on Wednesday night. As Jen Graves mentioned in a recent profile, in November Takamori’s doctor told him that the chemo wasn’t working and that his cancer was untreatable.

The Japanese-born artist exhibited all over the world, but he kept his studio in Seattle. He’d been a professor of art at the University of Washington since 1993, and had received numerous national awards for his work. He’s survived by his wife, Vicky, and two grown children, Peter and Lena.

Jen Graves wrote extensively about Takamori’s work. Revisit Teacher at James Harris, where he created sculptures based on photographs, and then transformed those sculptures back into photographs. His sculptural translation of the photographs and his photographic translation of the sculptures revealed the ways different media “see” the same image.

He used as the subject of his ceramics that one thing you’re not supposed to talk about.

Takamori’s Apology series premiers February 16 at James Harris.