Ten years of
ceramic work by an important figure among post-war artists.
Right from the outset, the American artist Betty Woodman has used ceramics as her medium of expression and artistic research, and it has made her one of the most influential and original voices on the international art scene. Bridging the gap between art and craft, Woodman moves nimbly between the traditions of an age-old medium, taking inspiration from numerous sources, including Minoan and Egyptian art, Greek and Etruscan sculpture, Tang Dynasty works, majolica and Sèvres porcelain, Italian Baroque architecture, and the paintings of Bonnard, Picasso and Matisse, while also introducing innovations in terms not only of style but also of technique. In particular, her way of combining ceramics and painting shows a painterly sensibility that in recent years has played a key role in the development of her work.
Published following the series of exhibitions at Marino Marini Museum, Florence, from September 20 to November 28, 2015, and the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, from February 3 to April 10, 2016.
Betty Woodman (1930-2018) studied ceramics at the School for American Craftsmen at Alfred University in Alfred, New York, from 1948 to 1950. She has received many honours, including the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship of the Study Center in Bellagio, Italy in 1995, in 1980 and in 1986 the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, and in 1966, the Fulbright-Hays Scholarship in Florence. She began to teach at the University of Colorado in Boulder in 1979 and became a “Professor Emeritus” in 1998. She received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, Rhode Island School of Design in 2009; a Doctor of Humane Letters Honoris Causa from the University of Colorado in 2007; and a Doctor of Fine Arts Honoris Causa from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 2006. Married to George Woodman, painter and photographer of international fame, she had two children with him, Charles, a video-artist and Francesca, a photographer who died in 1981. Since 1968, her works have frequently been included in group exhibitions and are part of more than 50 public collections, including: Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Massachusetts, International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, Museu Nacional do Azulejo in Lisbon, Museum of Modern Art in New York, National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the World Ceramic Center in Ichon, Korea.
Edited by
Vincenzo de Bellis.
Texts by Vincenzo de Bellis, Suzanne Hudson, Stuart Krimko, Gregor Muir, Alberto Salvadori, Katharine Stout.
published in June 2016
English edition
22 x 28,5 cm (softcover)
180 pages (color & b/w ill.)
ISBN : 978-88-6749-218-3
EAN : 9788867492183
sold out
