Transcription

1 PRINTS AND POTS

2

3

4

5

6 ROOKWOOD POTTERY AND KYUNG-LIM LEE LUCIE RIE AND MARTIN PURYEAR

7 BEATRICE WOOD AND HELEN FRANKENTHALER CLAUDE CONOVER AND JASPER JOHNS

8 FRED SANDBACK AND BILL GOLDSTON SAM FRANCIS AND ARNE BANG

9 JAMES TURRELL AND BERNARD LEACH CARROLL DUNHAM AND TIM ROWAN

10 RICHARD SERRA AND GERTRUD & OTTO NATZLER KATHERINE PLEYDELL-BOUVERIE AND ELLSWORTH KELLY

11 KYUNG-LIM LEE CIRCLE AND ELLIPSE, 2002 LITHOGRAPH 32 x 30 ED. 30 POTTERY ROOKWOOD STONEWARE JAR, 1900 STAMPED MONOGRAM AND /2 x 3 1/2 x 3 1/2

12 MARTIN PURYEAR UNTITLED V, 2005 SPITBITE AQUATINT WITH CHINE COLLE 29 x 34 ED. 40 LUCIE RIE TWO STONEWARE BOWLS WITH WHITE AND DARK BROWN GLAZE, INCISED LR MONOGRAM 2 3/4 x 5 1/4 x 5 1/4

13 HELEN FRANKENTHALER ALTITUDES, 1978 LITHOGRAPH 31 1/2 x 22 1/2 ED. 42 BEATRICE WOOD FOOTED BOWL, 1950s VOLCANIC LUSTRE GLAZE INSCRIBED BEATO 3 7/8 x 5 1/2 x 5 1/2

14 JASPER JOHNS UNTITLED, 1977 SCREEN-PRINT 10 x 10 ED CLAUDE CONOVER LILIT VASE, 1950s STONEWARE 20 1/2 x 15 5/8 x 15 5/8

15 FRED SANDBACK UNTITLED, 1976 AQUATINT 21 1/2 x 25 3/4 ED. 35 BILL GOLDSTON VASE, GLAZED STONEWARE 13 1/4 x 11 x 11

16 SAM FRANCIS UNTITLED, LITHOGRAPH 30 x 22 E/A 11/14 ARNE BANG STONEWARE VASE WITH SPECKLED BLUE AND GREY MATTE CRYSTALLINE GLAZE, INCISED AB MONOGRAM /2 x 3 1/2 x 3 1/2

17 JAMES TURRELL FROM SUITE FROM ATEN REIGN, 2014 SUITE OF THREE UKIYO-E JAPANESE STYLE WOODCUTS WITH RELIEF PRINTING 26 x 18 1/2 ED. 30 BERNARD LEACH STONEWARE JAR WITH SEMI-GLOSS GREEN GLAZE, LEACH POTTERY AND ST. IVES, CORNWALL STAMPED MARKS 7 x 4 x 4

18 CARROLL DUNHAM UNTITLED, 2006 ONE FROM A SUITE OF FOURTEEN LITHOGRAPHS 29 5/8 x 22 1/8 EACH ED. 5 TIM ROWAN UNTITLED, RARITAN BOX, 2014 WOODFIRED NATIVE CLAY 8 x 5 1/2 x 5 3/8

19 RICHARD SERRA COLTRANE, 1999 ETCHING 47 3/4 x 57 ED. 33 GERTRUD AND OTTO NATZLER STONEWARE DISH, 1950s YELLOW LAVA CRATER GLAZE INSCRIBED NATZLER 2 x 8 x 8

20 WILLEM DE KOONING HIGH SCHOOL DESK, 1970 LITHOGRAPH 31 1/2 x 23 5/8 ED. 57 JANET LEACH STONEWARE CUT BOWL 4 x 8 5/8 x 8 5/8

21 ELLSWORTH KELLY MAGNOLIA, 1966 LITHOGRAPH 17 7/16 x 24 13/16 ED. 75 KATHERINE PLEYDELL-BOUVERIE, 1920s SMALL STONEWARE VASE 3 1/4 x 3 x 3

22 PRINTS AND POTS 20 February 26 March, 2016 This exhibition pairs eleven contemporary prints with eleven studio pots. The pairings were made because they please my eye. There is no implied influence across media. I simply think these are beautiful objects that are even more beautiful when placed next to one another. Perhaps I can say they tell the same story in different languages. Two years ago Andrew Spindler-Roesle, my husband, and I were in New York, and I admired a pot by Claude Conover. Conover was new to me but not to Andrew, who taught me a good bit about him. Studio pottery had never garnered my attention before this encounter, and I had probably even consciously avoided it. The frequent zaniness of studio pottery is off-putting to me. A year after Andrew and I saw the Conover in New York, there was another one at auction in Boston. Again, we admired it, and I even pined for it. Much to my great astonishment, I unwrapped the Conover at Christmas, a gift from Andrew. This exhibition, then, began because of a splendid gift. Several days after receiving the gift, I dived into the subject of studio pottery and discovered that there was a thick vein of beautiful studio pottery that I had overlooked because of the proliferation of madcap work. I soon found a small chalice-like vase by Beatrice Wood. A lithograph in my gallery s inventory by Helen Frankenthaler immediately came to my mind s eye. And then I thought how beautiful my Conover would look with an Agnes Martin print. In the several years that I have been furiously studying and collecting antique Greek pots, Picasso and Matisse prints have frequently come to mind. I never imagined I would look so closely at studio pottery, much less think of specific prints as I had with Greek vases. I bought the Beatrice Wood and then found a beautiful dish by Gertrude and Otto Natzler, which I knew would have an animated conversation with a Richard Serra etching. And so it went. Which came first in the pairings, the pot or the print? Sometimes it was the pot and sometimes it was the print. There was a lot of moving the objects around: I discovered the Conover, with many series of incised parallel lines, had much more in common with a Jasper John cross-hatched silkscreen than with the Agnes Martin with which I had first paired it. I have to interject that in addition to the visual pleasure, the Johns and Conover together give me additional satisfaction as they are both gifts. I put an aquatint by James Turrell with a jar by Bernard Leach. They looked good together, but when Josh Pazda substituted a Turrell woodcut for the aquatint, the pot and print really began to sing. About two weeks before we were to open this exhibition, Bill Goldston was showing new ULAE prints in my gallery in Houston. I told him about the exhibition, and he told us that few people knew that he was a potter before he was a printer. I have known Bill for almost forty years, and I certainly did not know this. Of course, I asked if we could include one of his pots. Bill s jug was all about parallel lines, so it was paired with an etching by Fred Sandback. The Frankenthaler paired with the Beatrice Wood and the Carol Dunham paired with the Tim Rowan were both printed by Bill Goldston, so some unintended relationships were made. If Bill Goldston was a potter who became a printer, Bernard Leach was a printer who became a potter. Leach travelled to Japan to teach etching and returned to England to teach ceramics. Other associations that have surfaced are that Bernard and Janet Leach were married, as are Kyung-Lim Lee and James Turrell. Janet Leach, Katherine Pleydell- Bouverie, and Lucie Rie (the ne plus ultra of studio pottery) were students of Bernard Leach. Before Janet Leach studied with and married Bernard, they independently studied pottery in Japan, the first two Westerners to do so. The week before the exhibition was to open, Andrew and I were in a group antique shop in Adamstown, Pennsylvania, and saw a beautiful little Rookwood pot. I wondered aloud with whom it could be paired, and Andrew instantly said Kyung-Lim Lee! When I called Kyung to talk to her about the exhibition, she recounted having made pots with her mother in Korea as a child and later studying ceramics at Pratt. Lee also lives with exquisite Korean pots. Turrell s first art teacher was a potter, and he, too, has made pots with Nicholas Moss in Ireland Lapsed Quaker Ware. It is well known that Jasper Johns has long collected pots by George Ohr and has depicted them in his prints, drawings, and paintings. Many years ago now, when Richard Serra was visiting Houston, he asked me if we could visit antique shops or flea markets where he might hunt for pots. What kinds of pots he was looking for, I cannot remember. When visiting Jack Shearer and Ellsworth Kelly several years ago, I admired their collection of black basalt, and as I was leaving, Jack handed me a duplicate teapot for me to take with me. I have been late in coming to this game. HB

23 HIRAM BUTLER GALLERY 4520 BLOSSOM STREET HOUSTON TEXAS HIRAMBUTLER.COM