Yukiko Shuya passed away on April 17, 2026, at the Center for Hope Hospice in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. She was surrounded by her loving husband, William Thar, and her two daughters, Ida and Claire Fox. She died on her 86th birthday, a bright spring day, listening to her favorite cellist playing Bach.
Yukiko was born on April 17, 1940, in the city of Ise, on the island of Honshu, Japan. Ise houses the sacred Shinto shrine complex Ise Jingu. She was born at the beginning of World War II, the youngest of five children. Her early childhood was marked by the deprivations of war, sheltering from bombings and the loss of her mother when she was just six years old. Her father was an elementary school teacher and later a middle school principal. He valued education, was resourceful and generous. During the wartime he planted, harvested, and roasted tea for the schoolchildren. The family grew a garden at home and raised chickens, ensuring there would be food and an egg a day. Yukiko competed with her siblings to collect the most figs. Even in the lean post war years, their family had poetry, music, and exercise at home.
Yukiko’s family believed strongly in education and her mastery of English fueled academic success at Tsuda University in Tokyo. Her interest in English and America was shared with her closest older brother, but he died tragically young. Despite this devastating loss, she still followed her interest in studying and living abroad. After college, a Fulbright grant brought her to the US, where she pursued American studies (literature, history, and culture) at Brown University. She later studied English Literature at Oakland University in Michigan, where she met her first husband, Jeffrey Fox in a Shakespeare class.
Yukiko returned to Japan for two years where she taught English. She then married Jeffrey, returned to the US in 1968 and lived in Davis, California where their daughter Ida Keiko Fox was born. They moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts and welcomed their second daughter Claire Mikiko Fox. In Cambridge, Yukiko began to pursue her interest in art, taking classes and meeting other painters. The family next moved to Maryland where they separated and divorced.
In 1977 Yukiko was visiting friends in Michigan and there in a cherry orchard, she met William Thar, who was helping to harvest the fruit. They fell in love and soon relocated along with the children to East Lansing, Michigan. She studied drawing and painting, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Michigan State University. She then earned a Master of Fine Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. For two years she had a challenging commute living partly in Chicago and returning to East Lansing between class days.
In 1986 the family moved to Summit, New Jersey. There Yukiko built her art practice, first painting in a studio in Hoboken where space and freedom were challenged by pigeon intruders and family obligations. Over time she began working in ceramics, hand building figures and developing her organic vessels that layered color and Japanese script. She took frequent classes and was part of the community of artists at Greenwich House Pottery in the West Village in New York City. She also explored the city, saw art films, and ate Italian pastries.
Yukiko traveled the world, including Kenya, Spain, Italy, Germany, former Yugoslavia, Turkey, Indonesia and more with friends, family or alone. She drove to Arles, France to see where Van Gogh painted and brought family and friends to her favorite places in Guatemala to celebrate her 70th birthday. She enjoyed local artisans’ work, especially embroidered cloth, and carved wooden slingshots. She also explored many cities in the U.S. and periodically returned to Japan to see family. She remained close to her oldest sister and sustained long friendships with a group of college classmates.
Although art was the main work and focus for Yukiko, she also worked as a translator and brought art into elementary schools as a volunteer visitor and “picture person”. At home she was an avid gardener who was often in front of her house chatting to neighbors and giving plants away. Her hostas and other flowers are all around Summit. Even in winter she grew huge amaryllis and other plantings inside the house. She made the house a beautiful and interesting environment with her collected folk art, textiles, and artwork arrangements.
Yukiko enjoyed and cherished her close circle of friends, especially the group of friends, whose “orphan’s” Thanksgiving celebration alternated gatherings in Providence, Rhode Island, Philadelphia, and Stockton NJ. This group ebbed and flowed to include new friends, children, eventually the children’s spouses and more, over forty years. Locally she made friends with neighbors, Tsuda alumni, book clubs, and a group of yoga devotees. She started the ongoing tradition of ‘two for Tuesday’ pizza nights with the yoga friends, which continued for years.
Yukiko is survived by her husband of 46 years, Bill Thar of Short Hills, New Jersey, daughter Ida Fox (Scott Aubuchon) and granddaughter Sofia Aubuchon of St. Louis, Missouri and daughter Claire Fox (Andrew Davis) of Los Angeles, California.
A celebration of her life will be held at Reeves-Reed Arboretum in Summit, New Jersey where family and friends will gather to share stories, hear music and celebrate her life and artistic legacy.