OBJECTS REDUX: Small-Scale Studio Craft of the 1950s and 1960s

October 20, 2019 – February 2, 2020
at Racine Art Museum

Joan Pearson Watkins
Teapot, ca. 1955
Glazed stoneware
9 x 6 x 4 inches
Racine Art Museum, Gift of The Joan Pearson Revocable Trust
Photography: Jon Bolton, Racine

The Ruffo and Schumann galleries showcase work made in the decades just prior to OBJECTS: USA. In these spaces are small-scale ceramic, glass, wood, and metal objects from the 1950s and 1960s that reflect the types of works most associated with craft up to that point. Before OBJECTS: USA toured the country in the late 1960s and early 1970s, conversations about craft as art were percolating. However, the type of craft that predominated was functional. While there were artists already pushing the boundaries of what that could mean, the public most likely thought about craft, if they did at all, in terms similar to the vessels, bowls, and “useful” items represented here.

More About the Exhibition

Exhibition Series Notes (PDF)

Exhibition Series Gallery Guide (PDF)

A Conversation with Paul J. Smith, Co-Curator of OBJECTS: USA by Bruce W. Pepich, RAM Executive Director and Curator of Collections (PDF)

Press Room

Artists in the Exhibition

Dale Chihuly, Edward Cromey, Eugene Deutch, Richard DeVore, Robert W. Ebendorf, Elsa Bates Freund, Verne J. Funk, Karen Karnes, Maria Martinez, Joel Philip Myers, Gertrud Natzler, Otto Natzler, Harry Nohr, Ronald Hayes Pearson, Susan Harnly Peterson, Dame Lucie Rie, Edwin Scheier, Mary Scheier, William Spratling, Robert Stocksdale, Toshiko Takaezu, James L. Tanner, Mary Tingley, Joan Pearson Watkins, Beatrice Wood, and Claire Zeisler