LAURA ANDRESON

1982. 95 pages. 36 color photographs, 4 black and white photographs. Publication listing. Introduction by Bernard Kester. Commentary by Martha Longenecker, Director. Library of Congress No. 82-80626.

From the previous exhibition, LAURA ANDRESON: A Retrospective in Clay. Curated by Martha Longenecker.

The life work of one of the world's most outstanding craftsmen, known not only for the beauty of her own work, but as a leader in reviving the art of pottery making in the United States after its near disappearance during the Industrial Revolution. Professor Andreson of the University of California, Los Angeles is also known as an educator of over 5,000 students and is one of a very few Americans whose life and work have been chosen by the Smithsonian to be documented for the National Archives. Over 400 pots, representing a fifty year span of work by Laura Andreson, were on exhibit.

Excerpt from the book

INTRODUCTION
Bernard Kester
Professor of Art, U.C.L.A. and a long time colleague of Laura Andreson.

In recognition of Laura Andreson's leadership role in transforming the substance of clay into well structured ceramics of integrity and enduring beauty, the Mingei International Museum of World Folk Art presents a collection of over 350 works spanning forty-five years of her intense productivity, from 1937 to the present. As the first comprehensive retrospective exhibition of her work to be assembled since her academic retirement in 1970 from a long and distinguished teaching career at the University of California, Los Angeles, it also serves to demonstrate how Andreson's clear definition of form and knowledgeable handling of clay/glaze materials and firing procedures have developed in a logical and disciplined manner, disclosing her working belief in finding aesthetic satisfaction in creating forms for use.

A native Californian, Andreson contributed enormously to the rich diversity and vitality that have characterized the history and importance of the state's ceramic art. From San Bernardino where she was born in 1902, Andreson moved to Los Angeles for her college education, receiving her BA degree from UCLA in 1932. She began her academic career there in 1933, teaching a broad range of subjects in the Art Department while undertaking an MA program in painting at Columbia University, New York, which she completed in 1937.

Laura Andreson's first experiences in pottery making were in undergraduate classes directed by Olive Newcomb. However, by 1936, Andreson found herself working and teaching in the medium of clay, pioneering in a field that offered little local activity or information. Although there were a few studio potters and certain art potteries in production in Southern California during the 1930's, there was little local contact among them, and there was no medium of professional communication with potters in other parts of the country. Andreson's work in ceramics first became visible nationally in 1937 with an exhibition held at the Rene Rosenthal Gallery, New York, followed by a solo exhibition in 1940 at the Honolulu Academy of Art, Hawaii. Her leadership role and exhibition record were well established by the mid-1940's, marked by inclusion of her ceramics in the Eleventh National Ceramics Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in 1947, and by purchase of her work in 1946 by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, for its permanent collection.

Andreson's early ceramics in soft fired earthenware clays were formed by slip casting in one and two-piece molds, and by coil or slab construction by hand. Reflecting the typical limited range of technical possibilities available, they were most often fired with bright and shiny glazes, or with glazes applied in combination with textured unglazed surfaces on a single form. This limitation led her to undertake research in glaze chemistry and firing practices, a pursuit that has continued throughout her entire career. She began to experiment with matte glazes, and was the first to use them at low temperatures fired over dark iron-bearing engobes to achieve the burning effect of stoneware at a time before stoneware clays and high temperature firing were generally available to the individual studio potter. They provided a palette of soft, muted coloration and depth of surface that were earthy and organic, appropriate for textural clays and sgraffito patterning. A typical work with these visual and tactile qualities is the footed earthenware bowl from 1944, enriched with a carved surface, and fired in blue-gray matte glaze applied over an umber engobe.

Early critical comment about Andreson's pottery forms of this period included an article by art historian and writer, George Cox, who said ". . . they are in the best tradition, with that added something which only the creative hand supplies. Acknowledging their lowly origin they yet transform their clays into true art; being of the earth they are earthy, yet like the earth they are fecund of beauty . . ."

After learning how to throw in 1944 by way of contact with Gertrud Natzler in Los Angeles, and from having sent a student to Mills College, Oakland, to learn the throwing technique from Carlton Ball, Andreson obtained her first potter's wheel. Extending the linear and fluid possibilities of her shapes and contours, the potter's wheel has remained central to Andreson's growth and development to date. By 1948, the availability of stoneware clays, and the accidental reduction firing of her old Denver updraft kiln, expanded the scope of her work, and prompted serious experimental research into clay bodies and glaze compositions in a range of colors, surfaces, and higher temperatures not previously possible...