Introduction to the Evolution of Strictly Utilitarian Ceramics to Modern Ceramic Art

Just what catalyzed the American mid-twentieth-century ceramics Inmovement is still a matter of debate, but one thing is clear: between 1956 and 1962, a number of adventurous potters left mugs and tea pots behind and opened up the vast potential for clay as an expressive material. Within a decade, ceramics had been elevated to fine art status and could address the most contemporary issues of the day.

It is generally acknowledged that the rise of ceramic sculpture began primarily on the West Coast, the residence of the country's two most important pioneers, Peter Voulkos and Robert Arneson. In Los Angeles during the late 1950s, Voulkos drew from Abstract Expressionist tenets of experimentation, raw physicality, and spontaneity to produce his first non-vessel sculptures. The rugged vitality of his monumental "stacks" launched an abstract ceramic movement that followed him to Berkeley in 1959, attracting artists such as Stephen De Staebler and Ron Nagle. Soon after, Arneson and his U.C. Davis students David Gilhooly, Richard Shaw, and Peter VandenBerge opened up an entirely new thematic approach to ceramic sculpture with their irreverent, humorous "Funk" creations ranging in subject matter from the autobiographical to the political.

Today, no longer confined to craft categories, ceramic artists explore an unlimited range of themes, styles, and techniques. Approaches vary from the spunky bristles of Bean Finneran, to the calligraphic surfaces of Betty Woodman, the quirky geometries of Peter Shire, and the dreamy fantasies of Tony Marsh. Drawn primarily from the collection of the San Jose Museum of Art, Tales from the Kiln: Contemporary Ceramics presents a selection of these rich trends over the past fifty years.Just what catalyzed the American mid-twentieth-century ceramics movement is still a matter of debate, but one thing is clear: between 1956 and 1962, a number of adventurous potters left mugs and tea pots behind and opened up the vast potential for clay as an expressive material. Within a decade, ceramics had been elevated to fine art status and could address the most contemporary issues of the day.