Displaying items by tag: Ceramics

The exhibition Modern Taste: Art Deco in Paris, 1910-1935 presents a dazzling array of Art Deco furniture, decorative objects, paintings, sculptures, fashion garments, jewelry, glass, ceramics, and much more. The comprehensive display, which is currently on view at the Fundación Juan March in Madrid, strives to do more than present examples of Art Deco furniture and decor -- it strives to challenge the time-honored division between the fine arts and the decorative arts as well as question the nearly complete absence of Art Deco from the history of modern art.

Art Deco emerged in Paris in 1925 at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, where the style was first exhibited.

Visit InCollect.com to read more about Art Deco furniture, fine art, and decorative objects.

Picasso’s dream that anyone could own one of his works was further cemented at Sotheby’s London yesterday at the sale of Important Ceramics by Pablo Picasso (March 18). The auction almost tripled its pre-sale low estimate to bring £1,726,625 ($2,548,153), with a 95% sell-through rate by lot and 68% of the works sold achieving prices above their high estimates. Seven of the top ten prices established records for the subjects. The top lot, "Tripode,"soared above its estimate to bring £233,000 (est. £55,000-65,000), while many pieces reached amounts well above pre-sale expectations, including "Chouette visage de femme," which sold for £37,500, more than 12 times its estimate.

The Clay Studio celebrates the 10th anniversary of "Small Favors," an exhibition that challenges artists to work in a different scale. This exhibition provides high-quality artworks at an accessible price to art enthusiasts of all ages, and runs from April 3 – 26, 2015.

Since 2006, The Clay Studio has held "Small Favors" annually as a way to engage artists in new and exciting ways by providing a 4” acrylic cube that places a limitation in scale that must be rigorously adhered to (or creatively worked around). For some, the work created is similar to the artists’ normal body of work, although at a reduced scale.

Few design objects are as immediately recognizable as Piero Fornasetti’s (1913-1988) ceramic plates. They are boldly graphic and deliciously surreal, boasting an array of trompe l'oeil motifs that range from fish and flowers to the face of Lina Cavalieri -- a nineteenth-century opera singer. But Fornasetti did not stop at ceramics. Between the 1940s and the 1980s, the Milanese artist and designer created over 13,000 works. He churned out furniture, fabrics, and a swathe of decorative objects -- from trays and paperweights to screens and umbrella stands -- emblazoned with his distinct and irreverent designs.

Fornasetti is the subject of a major retrospective currently on view at the Louvre’s Les Arts Décoratifs, in Paris. To read more about the Piero Fornasetti exhibit, visit InCollect.com.

Since the mid-nineteenth century, Renaissance Italian bronze statuettes, maiolica wares, Limoges enamels, and French sixteenth-century ceramics belonged to the category of objects that every serious art collector in Europe hoped to own, their value and association with royal and noble provenance bestowing upon their owners an aura of cultivation and taste. The greatest collections were assembled by Sir Richard Wallace, George Salting, Frederic Spitzer, and several members of the Rothschild family, among others. Henry Clay Frick, who emulated these European collectors, acquired in 1915 most of John Pierpont Morgan’s renowned collection of Italian bronzes and Limoges enamels. Three years later, he completed his Renaissance collection of sculpture and decorative arts with the acquisition of a Saint-Porchaire ewer, shown at right, related to a small group of elaborate French sixteenth-century ceramics. Only about seventy authentic pieces of Saint-Porchaire are known today, making them exceedingly rare. In March, with the generous support of Trustee Sidney R. Knafel, the Frick purchased an unusual Saint-Porchaire ewer decorated with a lizard spout and a handle in the shape of a bearded man.

Asian art is gloriously basking in the sun this year. While 42 extraordinary galleries from around the globe open their doors with one-of-a-kind exhibitions during Asia Week New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art is celebrating the centennial of its world-renowned Department of Asian Art. Even Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour jumped on the bandwagon as she recently visited Beijing to promote the Met Costume Institute’s upcoming exhibition "China: Through the Looking Glass."

Works of art from all over the Asian continent and spanning over four millennia will be shown throughout Manhattan by international Asian art specialists during Asia Week New York, starting March 13 to March 21, 2015.  Art lovers can take in museum-caliber treasures including the rarest and finest Asian examples of painting, sculpture, bronzes, ceramics, jewelry, jade, textiles, prints, and photographs from all over Asia.

The act of drinking tea may be universal, but the art, culture and tradition surrounding it differs from one society to another. Tea pots, for instance, can be plain, or extremely ornate — and everything in between — depending on where you come from. In China, Korea, and Japan, the practice of drinking tea began in monasteries before spreading to the secular upper class. 

Introduced to British royalty in the 1660s meanwhile, tea-drinking became popular with the masses by the early 1700s, thanks largely to Thomas Twining, founder of Twinings of London. Exploring the beverage’s influence on art and culture around the globe, is an interesting exhibition opening this month at the Norton Museum of Art, with 182 objects spanning 1,200 years from the 700s to the 1900s.

How would a guy make a quilt?" Joel Otterson asked himself when he began his foray into the craft. "He would make it out of concrete and stone," he answered. And so he did.

Otterson's "quilts" consist of interlinking blocks of concrete, stone and ceramics that are meant to be walked and danced on rather than slept under. One is 19 by 22 feet and made from six tons of concrete and 500 dinner plates cut into 4,000 pieces. There's even a "crazy quilt" made from the scraps of his concrete projects.

Otterson is one of eight artists involved in "Man-Made: Contemporary Male Quilters," opening Jan. 25 at the Craft & Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles and curated by CAFAM Executive Director Suzanne Isken.

On Wednesday, January 7, 2015, Christie’s announced that Ambra Medda will be the new Global Creative Director of the auction house’s 20/21 Design Department. Based in London, the department is dedicated to furniture, lighting, ceramics, and sculpture from the Art Nouveau, Arts & Crafts, Art Deco, Modernist, and Contemporary movements. The auction house holds 20/21 Design sales twice annually in New York (June and December), Paris (May and November), and London (April and October).

Medda, an accomplished curator, co-founded Design Miami alongside developer Craig Robbins in 2005 and served as the fair’s director for five years. With annual shows in Basel, Switzerland, and Miami, Design Miami has emerged as one of the world’s leading celebrations of design culture and commerce.

The Dayton Institute of Art in Dayton, Ohio, is currently hosting “Deco Japan: Shaping Art and Culture, 1920-1945,” an intriguing exhibition that explores the influence of the Art Deco movement on Japanese culture. The show, which has been on view at a number of institutions, including the Seattle Art Museum in Washington, the Tyler Museum of Art in Texas, and the Columbia Museum of Art in South Carolina, is the first traveling exhibition outside of Tokyo dedicated to Japanese Art Deco. Drawn from the private Levenson Collection of Japanese art in Clearwater, Florida, “Deco Japan” features nearly two-hundred objects, including sculpture, ceramics, glassware, jewelry, textiles, prints, lacquerware, furniture, and paintings, including five works from Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.

Art Deco emerged in Paris in 1925 at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, where the style was first exhibited.