American Museum of Ceramic Art

Founded in 2001 and formally opened in 2004, the American Museum of Ceramic Art is the largest ceramics museum in the country and champions the art, history, creation and technology of ceramics through exhibitions, a growing permanent collection, outreach, and studio programming.

Exhibits

Breaking Ground: Women in California Clay – on view at AMOCA September 10, 2022-February 19, 2023

The American Museum of Ceramic Art is proud to present the exhibition Breaking Ground: Women in California Clay, celebrating 44 artists who have defined—and redefined—ceramics over the past 100 years. Many of the Golden State’s most innovative and impactful ceramic artists in the 20th and 21st centuries are women who faced adversity due to gender inequality and were often ignored or overlooked in favor of their male counterparts. These incredibly determined women pushed forward, driven by creativity and tenacity.

A momentous reframing of the California Clay Movement and its legacy, this exhibition will be the first to chronologize the evolution of ceramic art in California solely through the work of women artists, and the first exhibition to be presented across all three of AMOCA’s ground-floor galleries (8,800 square-feet).

Breaking Ground highlights the significant shifts in California ceramics over several generations of women artists. The story is told in three sections, using each artist's “breaking ground period” to determine their place in history. The first chapter includes Laura Andreson, Betty Davenport Ford, Stefanie Gruenberg, Vivika Heino, Elaine Katzer, Mary Lindheim, Martha Longenecker, Gertrud Natzler, Susan Peterson, Ruth Rippon, Susi Singer, Helen Ritcher Watson, Marguerite Wildenhain, and Beatrice Wood. These artists laid the groundwork for the field and inspired successive generations of artists.

The second chapter includes works by a disparate group of artists who explore the female figure, feminism, and the creation of the perfect form: Judy Chicago, Dora De Larios, Roseline Delisle, Viola Frey, Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, Phyllis Green, Margaret Keelan, Karen Koblitz, Marilyn Levine, Elsa Rady, Lisa Reinertson, Nancy Selvin, Anna Silver, and Sandy Simon. Works by these women mark a substantial break in artmaking from their predecessors.

The third chapter represents a younger generation of artists and includes Ashwini Bhat, Christina Erives, Keiko Fukazawa, Jenny Hata Blumenfield, Julia Haft-Candell, Anabel Juarez, Cathy Lu, Brittany Mojo, Crystal Morey, Kristen Morgin, Annabeth Rosen, Erika Sanada, Joan Takayama Ogawa, Kim Tucker, Anna Valdez, and Bari Ziperstein. Their work continues the conversation of other featured artists to traverse themes of politics, identity, the environment, and the prevailing issues of globalization, colonialism, and reclaiming histories that have become increasingly important in the lives of practicing women artists.

Breaking Ground: Women in California Clay celebrates singular acts of women ceramists and their breakthrough moments, which have altered the course of ceramics.

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