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."
Steve Heinemann is a Canadian artist working in ceramics.
Cindy Kolodziejski is a contemporary ceramic artist living and working in Venice, California. She has been showing her work in solo and group exhibitions since 1986 in the United States, Europe, and Asia, and is represented in public and private collections domestically and abroad.
Adrian Saxe is an American ceramic artist who was born in Glendale, California in 1943. He lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
Bonnie Seeman is known for her ceramic work.
Arnold Zimmerman (1954-2021), also known as Arnie Zimmerman, was an American sculptor and ceramic artist. His work ranged from monumental to miniature, and abstract to figurative, encompassing totemic vessel forms, tabletop sculpture and figures, murals, and room-size installations. He was part of a multi-decade, 20th-century shift in American ceramics during which artists challenged clay's identification with function and craft, engaging fine-art domains such as emotional expression, social commentary, figuration and narrative. Zimmerman first gained recognition in the 1980s for deeply carved, architectonic sculptures characterized by rough physicality, rhythmic surfaces, gestural presence and Italian Romanesque influences. In the mid-1990s, he shifted to figurative work that critic Donald Kuspit wrote, examined the interaction of finite man and infinite matter, artist and creative work: "There is a sense of futility and folly as well as seemingly senseless idealism and innocence built into Zimmerman's parables of the all-too-human."
Julia Galloway is a Montana-based studio potter and professor of ceramics at the University of Montana-Missoula.
Beth Cavener, also known as Beth Cavener Stichter, is an American artist based out of Montana. A classically trained sculptor, her process involves building complex metal armatures to support massive amounts of clay. Cavener is best known for her fantastical animal figures, which embody the complexity of human emotion and behavior.
Steven Montgomery is an American artist most often associated with large scale ceramic sculpture suggesting industrial objects or mechanical detritus. He received a Bachelor of Philosophy degree from Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan, and a Master of Fine Arts from the Tyler School of Art of Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Heather Mae Erickson is an artist, a craftsperson, and a designer. Erickson earned her BFA at The University of the Arts, majoring in crafts specializing in ceramics with a concentration in art education. Continuing her studies at Cranbrook Academy of Art, she earned an MFA in ceramic art.
Garth Clark is an art critic, art historian, curator, gallerist, and art dealer from Pretoria, South Africa.
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.
Chris Gustin is an American ceramicist. Gustin models his work on the human form, which is shown through the shape, color, and size of the pieces.
Christine McHorse, also known as Christine Nofchissey McHorse, was a Navajo ceramic artist from Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Beth Katleman is an American artist known for porcelain assemblage sculpture cast from found objects. Her allegorical installations fall within the genre of pop surrealism, combining decorative elements, such as Rococo embellishments and 19th century Toile de Jouy wallpaper scenery, with satirical references to consumer culture, fairy tales and classic literature. Katleman's work is in private and institutional collections and is exhibited internationally, including an installation commissioned by architect Peter Marino for Christian Dior, in the Hong Kong and London flagship boutiques. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, and is the recipient of the 2011 Moët Hennessey Prize, a Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation grant, the Watershed Generation X Award, a Kohler Arts/Industry Fellowship and a residency in Cortona, Italy sponsored by the University of Georgia, Athens. Katleman holds a BA in English from Stanford University, an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and an MBA in Arts Management from UCLA.
Nan Bangs McKinnell (1913–2012) was an American ceramicist and educator. Nan was a founding member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts, a member of the American Craft Council College of Fellows, along with receiving several awards for her work. James "Jim" McKinnell (1919–2005), her spouse, was also a ceramicist and they made some collaborative work.
Lisa Kay Orr is an American potter and a teacher of ceramics. Orr has work in both public and private collections, and shows her work nationally as well as internationally. Orr's work can be seen in the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco and in Korea in the collection of the WOCEF.
Donald Eugene Frith was an American ceramic artist and academic known for his unique style of teapots, mixing ceramics with acrylics and wood.
