Current Exhibition
Daniel Rhodes Revisited
I have a deep enthusiasm for clay as a medium of expression. My enthusiasm ebbs and flows like an appetite, but it is always there and it has been the source of my energy. D.R. The Studio Potter, December, 1984
I have a deep enthusiasm for clay as a medium of expression. My enthusiasm ebbs and flows like an appetite, but it is always there and it has been the source of my energy. D.R. The Studio Potter, December, 1984
Daniel Rhodes 1911-1989
Daniel Rhodes was a potter, sculptor, educator, and author who impacted the development of ceramic art in America during clay's crucial mid-century era. A native of Iowa, Rhodes first engaged in art as a painter and muralist, having studied with the iconic regionalist, Grant Wood at the Stone City Art Colony near Cedar Rapids in the summers of 1932 and 1933. Simultaneously, Rhodes graduated with an undergraduate degree in art history from the University of Chicago in 1933. His interest in clay began through his wife, Lillyan Jacobs whom he married in 1940 at Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona. Her enthusiasm for the Native pueblo pottery of New Mexico spawned Rhodes' interest, and he soon thereafter attended Alfred University – New York State College of Ceramics from 1941-42. There he was greatly influenced by British artist, Sam Haile, and was the first person to graduate from the school's Master of Fine Arts Program. After a five year stay in Northern California near Palo Alto, Rhodes returned to Alfred where he taught for 25 years, securing his influence on the development of the ceramic art through his many students.
During this fervent time, Rhodes began to write his noteworthy books which include Clay and Glazes for the Potter (1957), Stoneware and Porcelain (1959), Tamba Pottery, The Timeless Art of A Japanese Village (1962), Kilns (1968) and Pottery Form (1975). Rhodes' 1962 trip to Japan, funded by a Fulbright Scholarship, was a transformative year where he investigated the enduring practices of Japanese pottery and the cultures that produced them. In 1973, after years of teaching in upstate New York, Daniel and Lillyan Rhodes returned to the West Coast, specifically the greater San Francisco Bay Area. They settled along the Pacific coast near Santa Cruz amidst a thriving ceramics community centered around the Big Creek Pottery. There Daniel Rhodes continued his ceramic practice mostly as a figurative sculptor. He also traveled extensively and gave many workshops until his untimely death in Reno, Nevada. The images in this exhibition document select aspects of Rhodes' prolific life and career.
JAPAN: The Japan imagery includes photographs Rhodes himself took while traveling throughout the country in 1962. He captured the visual aesthetics of the region, while also documenting the creation and firing of traditional vessel forms. Like many American artists who traveled to Japan, Daniel Rhodes visited Shoji Hamada who had made several tours of the United States with Bernard Leach during the 1950s. These images are courtesy of a private collection.
CALIFORNIA: In 1984 Gerry Williams, the editor of the magazine, The Studio Potter, visited Rhodes in California. Together Rhodes and Williams compiled an extensive story of Rhodes' life while photographically capturing his sculpture, studio, and home in the article The Search for Form. Photos attributed to Thomas Linden and Gerry Williams. See The Studio Potter, Volume 13, No. 1 (December 1984) pp. 1-7. These Studio Potter Archives images are courtesy of ASU Art Museum Ceramics Research Center, Tempe, Arizona.
BLANDEN MUSEUM: The Blanden Museum of Art in Fort Dodge, Iowa is currently reinvestigating Daniel Rhodes' life and career. The exhibition, Daniel Rhodes – A Fort Dodge Native assembles for the first time in many years a significant body of work that includes early paintings, mural sketches, drawings, thrown and organic vessel forms, and figurative guardians and heads. Many knew Daniel Rhodes as an accomplished potter, educator, and ceramics scholar. His figurations, especially his largescale guardians, unveil a dynamic artist who refused to be defined by predictable artistic practices. Photos are by Roger Feldhans.
Daniel Rhodes was a potter, sculptor, educator, and author who impacted the development of ceramic art in America during clay's crucial mid-century era. A native of Iowa, Rhodes first engaged in art as a painter and muralist, having studied with the iconic regionalist, Grant Wood at the Stone City Art Colony near Cedar Rapids in the summers of 1932 and 1933. Simultaneously, Rhodes graduated with an undergraduate degree in art history from the University of Chicago in 1933. His interest in clay began through his wife, Lillyan Jacobs whom he married in 1940 at Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona. Her enthusiasm for the Native pueblo pottery of New Mexico spawned Rhodes' interest, and he soon thereafter attended Alfred University – New York State College of Ceramics from 1941-42. There he was greatly influenced by British artist, Sam Haile, and was the first person to graduate from the school's Master of Fine Arts Program. After a five year stay in Northern California near Palo Alto, Rhodes returned to Alfred where he taught for 25 years, securing his influence on the development of the ceramic art through his many students.
During this fervent time, Rhodes began to write his noteworthy books which include Clay and Glazes for the Potter (1957), Stoneware and Porcelain (1959), Tamba Pottery, The Timeless Art of A Japanese Village (1962), Kilns (1968) and Pottery Form (1975). Rhodes' 1962 trip to Japan, funded by a Fulbright Scholarship, was a transformative year where he investigated the enduring practices of Japanese pottery and the cultures that produced them. In 1973, after years of teaching in upstate New York, Daniel and Lillyan Rhodes returned to the West Coast, specifically the greater San Francisco Bay Area. They settled along the Pacific coast near Santa Cruz amidst a thriving ceramics community centered around the Big Creek Pottery. There Daniel Rhodes continued his ceramic practice mostly as a figurative sculptor. He also traveled extensively and gave many workshops until his untimely death in Reno, Nevada. The images in this exhibition document select aspects of Rhodes' prolific life and career.
JAPAN: The Japan imagery includes photographs Rhodes himself took while traveling throughout the country in 1962. He captured the visual aesthetics of the region, while also documenting the creation and firing of traditional vessel forms. Like many American artists who traveled to Japan, Daniel Rhodes visited Shoji Hamada who had made several tours of the United States with Bernard Leach during the 1950s. These images are courtesy of a private collection.
CALIFORNIA: In 1984 Gerry Williams, the editor of the magazine, The Studio Potter, visited Rhodes in California. Together Rhodes and Williams compiled an extensive story of Rhodes' life while photographically capturing his sculpture, studio, and home in the article The Search for Form. Photos attributed to Thomas Linden and Gerry Williams. See The Studio Potter, Volume 13, No. 1 (December 1984) pp. 1-7. These Studio Potter Archives images are courtesy of ASU Art Museum Ceramics Research Center, Tempe, Arizona.
BLANDEN MUSEUM: The Blanden Museum of Art in Fort Dodge, Iowa is currently reinvestigating Daniel Rhodes' life and career. The exhibition, Daniel Rhodes – A Fort Dodge Native assembles for the first time in many years a significant body of work that includes early paintings, mural sketches, drawings, thrown and organic vessel forms, and figurative guardians and heads. Many knew Daniel Rhodes as an accomplished potter, educator, and ceramics scholar. His figurations, especially his largescale guardians, unveil a dynamic artist who refused to be defined by predictable artistic practices. Photos are by Roger Feldhans.