Bowl, ca. 1965
Made in Ojai, California
Stoneware, 7 1/8 in. (18.1 cm) diam.
Gift of Henry C. Huglin
1998.20.1
San Francisco native Beatrice Wood studied drama and dance in Paris, where she met Marcel Duchamp in 1916. The French Dadaist encouraged her to draw, and they collaborated on projects, but it was a fascination for luster pottery, first spied in a Dutch antiques store, which would spur her lifelong pursuit. Returning to the United States, Wood sought out teachers in Glen Lukens, Vivika and Otto Heino, and émigrés Gertrud and Otto Natzler. Her simple, elegant vessels, recalling ancient ceremonial forms, explore the lustrous effects of metallic oxides in the glaze. Yale's large bowl, with its wide mouth tapering to a small foot, provides an ideal vehicle for showing variations within the textured gray glaze and represents the middle period of her career.
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