Peter Voulkos was an American artist of Greek descent. He is known for his abstract expressionist ceramic sculptures, which crossed the traditional divide between ceramic crafts and fine art. He established the ceramics department at the Los Angeles County Art Institute and at UC Berkeley.
Joan Takayama-Ogawa is a sansei (third-generation) Japanese-American ceramic artist and currently professor at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, California. Takayama-Ogawa's heritage since the 15th century of Japanese ceramic art influences her work, that usually explores beauty, decoration, ornamentation and narrative while also introducing a dialogue that rejects the traditional role of women in Japanese culture. Her most recent work addresses issues like climate change.
D. Wayne Higby is an American artist working in ceramics. The American Craft Museum considers him a "visionary of the American Crafts Movement" and recognized him as one of seven artists who are "genuine living legends representing the best of American artists in their chosen medium."
Regis Brodie is a tenured Professor of Art at the Department of Art and Art History at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY and a potter. Since 1972, he has been serving as the Director of the Summer Six Art Program at Skidmore College. He also wrote a book called The Energy Efficient Potter which was published by Watson-Guptill Publications in 1982. He started the Brodie Company in 1999 in the interest of developing tools which would aid the potter at the potter's wheel.
Rose Cabat was an American studio ceramicist, classified as part of the mid-century modern movement who was best known for her innovative glazes upon small porcelain pots called 'feelies' often in the shape of onions and figs, and bowls. She was the oldest known actively practicing pottery artist in the United States.
Rudolf Harry "Rudi" Staffel was an American ceramic artist and educator.
Mary Lee Hu is an American artist, goldsmith, and college level educator known for using textile techniques to create intricate woven wire jewelry.
Mark Lindquist is an American sculptor in wood, artist, author, and photographer. Lindquist is a major figure in the redirection and resurgence of woodturning in the United States beginning in the early 1970s. His communication of his ideas through teaching, writing, and exhibiting, has resulted in many of his pioneering aesthetics and techniques becoming common practice. In the exhibition catalog for a 1995 retrospective of Lindquist's works at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, his contributions to woodturning and wood sculpture are described as "so profound and far-reaching that they have reconstituted the field". He has often been credited with being the first turner to synthesize the disparate and diverse influences of the craft field with that of the fine arts world.
Laura Andreson was an American ceramic artist and educator at University of California Los Angeles.
Sueharu Fukami is a Japanese ceramic artist and sculptor known for his work in pale-blue qinbai porcelain. Fukami's abstracted, sculptural ceramic works depart from the traditional Japanese artisan traditions of his upbringing and instead explore natural phenomena and universal senses like "infinite space" through sharp silhouettes, sweeping curves, architecturally-inspired arches, and delicately-colored glaze. His minimalist approach to porcelains has contributed to defining and expanding the meaning, importance, and popularity of contemporary Japanese ceramics beyond craft art circles, most notably to fine art collectors and museums globally.
Howard William Kottler was an American ceramist, conceptual artist, and professor of ceramics at the University of Washington, credited as a seminal force in redefining the direction of contemporary American ceramic art.
Gertrud Amon Natzler was an Austrian-American ceramicist, who together with her husband Otto Natzler created some of the most praised ceramics art of the 20th century, helping to elevate ceramics to the status of a fine art.
Harrison Edward McIntosh was an American ceramic artist. He was an exponent of the Mid-century Modern style of ceramics, featuring simple symmetrical forms. His work has been exhibited in venues in the United States including the Smithsonian and internationally including at the Louvre in France.
Paul Dresang is an American ceramic artist and professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Working mainly with glass, porcelain, and clay, Dresang’s “highly individual, sensuous, salt-fired porcelain forms are decorated with an obsessive amount of detail.” He defines his work primarily as “post-modern fertility pieces".” Dresang aims to create surreal images with ceramics by often focusing on everyday items in his work, and by exploring “opposing ideas of constraint and breaking free”. After receiving his MFA, Dresang has gone on to become a highly sought-after potter. He has presented his work in countless group exhibitions, and is featured in many permanent collections nationally. He is currently located in Edwardsville, Illinois.
Jack Earl is an American ceramic artist and former teacher, known for drawing inspiration from his home state of Ohio to create rural pieces “with meticulous craftsmanship and astute details… to where you could smell the air, hear the silence and swat the flies.” Although his works hint at highly personal, intellectual, and narrative themes in an almost unsettling manner, Earl is “a self-described anti-intellectual who shuns the art world." He is known particularly for using his trademark format, the dos-a-dos : “This art form is like a book with two stories… the two seemingly incongruent images prompt the viewer to fill in the conceptual gap through poetic speculation.” His work often involves dogs or the character “Bill”, who is said to be a combination of Earl’s father-in-law, himself, and others. The titles to his pieces are typically lengthy, stream-of-consciousness narratives that suggest the folk or rural lifestyle. These are intended to add another dimension to the artwork. His work has received a notable response over his decades-long career, especially since he is regarded as “a master at reminding us that within the events we take for granted are moments of never-ending mystery and wonder.” Earl continues to live in Lakeview, Ohio with his wife, Fairlie.
Richard Shaw is an American ceramicist and professor known for his trompe-l'œil style. A term often associated with paintings, referring to the illusion that a two-dimensional surface is three-dimensional. In Shaw's work, it refers to his replication of everyday objects in porcelain. He then glazes these components and groups them in unexpected and even jarring combinations. Interested in how objects can reflect a person or identity, Shaw poses questions regarding the relationship between appearances and reality.
Kurt Weiser is an American ceramicist and professor. His work—explorations of the relationship between man and nature through narratives rendered in vivid color—are described as "Eden-like." His work has often taken the form of teapots, vases, and cups, though he has recently begun crafting globes as well. Weiser is currently the Regents Professor at Arizona State University's School of Art.
Donald Lester Reitz was an American ceramic artist, recognized for inspiring a reemergence of salt glaze pottery in United States. He was a teacher of ceramic art at the University of Wisconsin–Madison from 1962 until 1988. During this period, he adapted the pottery firing technique developed in the Middle Ages, which involved pouring salt into the pottery kiln during the firing stage. The method was taught in European ceramic art schools, but largely unknown in United States studio pottery.
John Parker Glick was an American ceramicist. Though open to artistic experimentation, Glick was most influenced by the styles and aesthetics of Asian pottery—an inspiration that shows in his use of decorative patterns and glaze choices. His experience working with ceramics led him to publish several articles about the craft. In addition to producing pottery, Glick began making "landscape oriented" wall panels during the latter part of his career. Known as "the people's potter," he is primarily remembered for his contributions to art and the field of ceramics.
Michael Sherrill is an American ceramist and sculptor. Primarily self-taught, Sherrill's early work in the 1970s and 1980s focused on creating functional pieces in clay before turning to sculptural artwork in porcelain and metal in the 1990s. Sherrill lives and works in Bat Cave, North Carolina.
