The most immediately recognizable of Brooklyn-based sculptor Fitzhugh Karol’s works might be his colorful large-scale industrial steel sculptures seen around the borough as part of the NYC Parks Department’s Art in the Parks program. Searches (inspired by the iconic Soldiers and Sailors Arch at Grand Army Plaza) and Reaches (which mimicked the movement of park-goers along the park’s loop) were on view in Prospect Park in 2018. In 2019 and 2020, the park installed Field’s Jax I and Field’s Jax IV in DUMBO. The following year, Field’s Jax Thicket was shown on the lawn of the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum in Pelham Bay Park.

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He has exhibited work at the Bartow-Pell, Socrates Sculpture Park, Rochester Contemporary Arts Center, the Aidron Duckworth Museum and, most recently, at LongHouse Reserve in the exhibition “Full Circle: Toshiko Takaezu and Friends,” which overlapped with a now-closed Toshiko Takaezu show at the Noguchi Museum.

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Karol’s angular and artificially colored public art might at first seem worlds away from the work of the renowned Japanese-American ceramic artist, whose mysterious closed-form stoneware and porcelain pieces tended to evoke nature, but he apprenticed with Takaezu two decades ago and still considers the experience formative. Takaezu was known for treating mentorship as an essential part of her artistic practice, as well as for her openness. She believed nurturing relationships fueled creativity, and apprentices like Karol and Martha Russo became close friends. “Full Circle” considers Takezu’s work in the context of those........

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