High Resolution Photos • Reception
Press Release (pdf) • Plain-text Press Release (docx)
| On view: | January 18, 2020 – July 18, 2021 |
| Reception: | February 8, 6–9 PM • Artist Talk by Richard Shaw @ 7 PM |
As an undergraduate at Pomona College in Claremont, California, in 1959, David Armstrong enrolled in a required art course taught by Scripps College Professor Paul Soldner. Soldner’s renowned charisma charmed Armstrong and awakened a passion for the ceramic arts, so much so that Armstrong returned in the 1990s to pursue an MFA degree at The Claremont Graduate School. His passion for ceramic art matured into a love of collecting, and, with his spouse Julianne, he began assembling a comprehensive and enviable collection of post-World War II ceramic art from North America.
New Acquisitions from Julianne and David Armstrong, celebrating a donation of extraordinary works to the American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA) from the Armstrongs, includes rarely-seen works by some of North America’s leading ceramic artists, among them notable groupings of work from faculty and graduates from Alfred University (Andrea Gill, Ted Randall, Victor Babu, Don Reitz, Richard Shaw, Josh DeWeese, Karen Karnes, Peter Pincus, and more) and from Otis College of Art and Design (including Peter Voulkos, Harrison McIntosh, Porntip Sangvanich, Ralph Bacerra, John Mason, and Ricky Maldonado).
Works from Maldonado, Bacerra, and Rose Cabat exemplify the flashy, colorful influences of Los Angeles. Trompe-l’œil work from Shaw, Sylvia Hyman, David Furman and Victor Spinski are definitive examples of the North American take on this century’s old technique. Sculptural and figurative works from a host of other luminaries, including Voulkos, Richard Devore, Peter Callas, Patti Warashina, Joe Bova, Betty Davenport-Ford, Margaret Keelan, Gina Lawson-Egan, Janis Mars-Wunderlich, Glenn Takai, McIntosh, Jens Morrison, and Rimas VisGirda round out this remarkable selection. Taken together, it is an impressive representation of ceramic artistic production in North America over the last century, and the Armstrongs’ preserving and sharing these artistic traditions with the public.
Education programs are made possible in part by the Ruth and Joseph C. Reed Foundation for the Arts.
Lecture by Richard Shaw
Born in Hollywood in 1941, Richard Shaw spent the 1960s studying at the San Francisco Art Institute and University of California, Davis, where he received his BFA and MFA degrees. Known for his hyper-realistic sculpture work, Shaw’s early career was influenced by time spent with Robert Arneson, Jim Melchert, Peter Voulkos John Mason, Robert Hudson, and Ron Nagle. A professor at the University of California, Berkeley since 1987, Shaw is recognized as a leading force in the development and direction of ceramics in the last half of the twentieth century.
Richard Shaw was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts Crafts Grant in 1970 and the National Endowment for the Arts Grant in 1974. His works can be found in the collections of highly prestigious national and international museums including the Smithsonian, Whitney Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo.