You guys. I had no idea that for 15 years I’ve been living 2 hours from one of the biggest international ceramics collections, and the biggest collection of works from California kilns, in the U.S. True, I should have known, and the Internet would have happily informed me. But it was SO MUCH FUN to turn the corner at the Crocker Art Museum and walk into a literal mansion full of ceramics: ancient Native American, classical Korean, art nouveau, modern sculptural pieces by Black artists, a whole room of Meissen…. It was like they all got together and threw me a surprise party, waving at me from their sparkling cases.
All of it was wonderful, but the nicest part for me personally was the introduction to California kilns (so hot they’ll melt your popsicle…sorry, Katy Perry). I knew about Rookwood and a few Berkeley kilns, but the Crocker has everything. A really impressive American collection in general (I see you hiding over there, van Briggle). It’s maybe not as well narrativized as I would have liked: It would have been nice to have the California stuff organized around the timeline of the potteries with some info about how they started and why, how they attracted so many Japanese and Danish potters in particular, profiles of the potters…. The labeling was a little painful in general—crammed together into long strips of descriptions that left you guessing where the numbering started so you could find shelf 9. But I imagine that’s because they were trying not to drill too much into the truly jaw-dropping woodwork in the old Crocker mansion. That’s OK: that just leaves me a puzzle to solve for another day, or two, or three…. Take a look at the gallery below to catch some highlights
I should mention they have an amazing collection up right now of Black American art since WWII; this is a beaded piece by Joyce Scott, and I just loved her work.Ruth Rippon, who taught at Sac State. The engraving here represents the layers of sediment at the bottom of Lake Prieto.This was the first American piece to catch my eye in the collection, before I really knew what I was in for. It’s by Eljer, the company who made my sink, bathtub, and toilet growing up! I love it when industrial kilns do art pottery. There’s a lot of that in the Scandinavian kilns as well.Vase with night-blooming cereus by Albert Valentien for Rookwood. Apparently the cereus only blooms one night and then dies.Two pieces from Stockton Pottery’s “Rekston” line with hand-painted California poppies and morning gloriesA Japonisme vase with lacquerware glazing techniques by Clément MassierGertrud and Otto Natzler were some of California’s first studio potters, setting up their kiln in the 1940s.Vase with silver overlay by Kataro Shirayamadani for RookwoodFour art nouveau luster ware vases by Jacques SicardThree crystalline glazed vases, one by Flint Faience Co. and the two on the right by Thomas Gotham. The Van Briggles!A super-interesting “crumpled” French art-nouveau vase The Crocker also had an impressive collection of ceramic antiquities, including this Greek chalice from the same era as Socrates’s infamous hemlock chalice….A Tang Dynasty tripod vase with an unusual and beautiful indigo glazeI had never seen these before: Hopi-Tewa “sherd design” vessels; if you look closely, you’ll see the pattern is a patchwork of what look like sherds of other potsA really beautiful Raku ware tea bowlAn absolutely adorable Yuan dynasty market about 3 inches highThere was also a nice collection of contemporary Asian sculptural pieces. This one is by Mineo Mizuno, which repeats the kanji for “zero” or “silence” to evoke a hollowed out stone water basin in a traditional garden.
The Rookery 