Curator’s Eye

Beatrice Wood (1893–1998), Untitled, Earthenware with gold luster glaze, 1987 | GIFT OF THE NORA ECCLES TREADWELL FOUNDATION

UNTITLED IS AN INTRIGUING double vessel by Beatrice Wood, a consummate experimenter and explorer in ceramic arts. Wood began her career painting, drawing, writing, and acting before turning to clay at age forty. After failing to find a teapot to match lusterware plates she had purchased at an antiques shop, she enrolled in pottery classes in the Adult Education Department of Hollywood High School. Fascinated by the process of creating the glasslike, iridescent luster glaze, she studied further under ceramists Glen Lukens and Gertrud and Otto Natzler, and then established her own studio in Ojai in 1948. She devoted her practice to luster- glazing techniques and developed a signature style featuring shades of green, pink, purple, silver, copper, and gold.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s Wood experienced commercial and critical success for her conventional table settings and figurines. Untitled is indicative of her late period when she abandoned functional pottery and concentrated on ambitious decorative vessels featuring sculptural additions, such as nude figures, textured surfaces, and exaggerated handles and spouts. Active until her death at 105, Wood was one of America’s most acclaimed ceramic artists and her works are in museum collections around the world.

Rebecca A. Dunham
Curator of Collections and Exhibitions
Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art
Utah State University, Logan