Collection Focus: Michael Lucero at RAM

September 12, 2009 – January 17, 2010

Michael Lucero
Deer from the Reclamation Series, 1996
Glazed white earthenware and found painted concrete object
40 5/8 x 35 x 9 3/4 inches
Racine Art Museum, Gift of Karen Johnson Boyd
Photography: Michael Tropea, Chicago, IL

RAM presents a career survey of the works of internationally recognized ceramic sculptor Michael Lucero. This exhibition—the third in an ongoing series of exhibitions that feature promised gifts and works already in the museum’s permanent collection—contains a total of 15 works by Lucero, of which eight are recognized as examples of his major sculptures.

Born in Tracy, California in 1953, Michael Lucero received his BA degree from Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. He completed his MFA at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he studied with Howard Kottler. Lucero received national recognition early in his career, while still in graduate school, for a series of large hanging figures made up of ceramic shards that were wired to pipe armatures. Lucero is a three-time recipient of National Endowment for the Arts grants.

Lucero usually works in series. He creates pieces using a specific form or method of working over a period of time before evolving into another way of depicting imagery. RAM’s current representation of this artist’s career includes a number of works from different series and the museum will continue to build on its documentation of Lucero’s work.

In continuation of RAM’s commitment to contemporary craft and to further scholarship in the field, the museum produced a 20-page exhibition catalogue, with essays on the significance of Michael Lucero’s work along with representative images from the museum’s permanent collection. This full-color publication is available for purchase on-site in the RAM Museum Store and online at racineartmuseumstore.org.

More About the Exhibition

Exhibition Catalogue, available for purchase from the RAM Online Store

Press Room