- Item:
Ceramic Tiles
- Artist/Designer:
Rhoda Lopez, 1912-1993, 20th Century American Ceramist
Study:
Cranbrook Academy of Art
University of Michigan
Wayne University
Scripps College
Permanent Collections:
Detroit Institute of Arts
Museum of the University of Wisconsin
Scripps College, Claremont, CA.
Art Center, Des Moines, IA.
Exhibited:
Detroit Artists Market
University of Wisconsin
Scripps College, Ceramics Annuals
Little Gallery, Birmingham, MI
Leonard Linns, Chicago, Ill
Art Center, La Jolla, One man show 1960, Faculty Exhibitions and
Membership Exhibitions
Decorative Arts and Ceramics Exhibitions, Wichita Art Assn.
Ceramic Nationals, Everson Museum, Syracuse, NY
Michigan Craftsmen, Detroit, MI
Los Angeles County Fair, Pomona, CA. 1952
Michigan Academy of Science, Art and Letters
Pasadena Art Museum, CA. Design 8,9,10,11 (1962-1971)
All American, New York
Three Artists, Ann Arbor, MI
Detroit Institute of Arts
Southern CA. Exposition, Del Mar, CA, 1960 “Crafts for Contemporary
Living” American Craftsmen’s Council, Seattle, WA Allied
Craftsmen Annual Exhibitions, Fine Arts Gallery, San Diego, CA Jefferson
Gallery, La Jolla, CA
Ceramics: East and West, Fine Arts Gallery, San Diego, CA Survey
1969, Fine Arts Gallery, San Diego, CA Media Survey, 1973, Fine
Arts Gallery, San Diego, CA
Member:
Allied Craftsmen of San Diego
Southern California Designer Craftsmen, Inc.
San Diego Art Guild
Already a prominent
Ann Arbor, Michigan potter, who studied under Maija Grotell at Cranbrook
and participated in both regional and national exhibitions; after
the loss of her husband, Cuban-American painter and muralist, Carlos
Lopez, Rhoda Lopez moved to San Diego in 1959. She joined the faculty
of the La Jolla School of Arts, at the Art Center in La Jolla, when
that short-lived institution was at its peak and taught alongside
significant area artists like Fred Holle, Guy Williams, Beatrice
Levy, Kay Whitcomb and Mac McClain. As Ceramist in Residence, her
work was exhibited at the Art Center in both a one-man show and
annual faculty exhibitions. Her teaching style, refined, and with
extensive academic background, contrasted sharply with Mac McClain’s,
who had taught the pottery classes until her arrival and then taught
sculpture. McClain had been in the first class taught by Peter Voulkos
at the Otis Art Institute, and represented a non-dogmatic instructional
method as well as the early adaptation of Abstract Expressionism
to ceramic art. After the closing of the Art Center School in 1964,
Lopez was the only instructor to transition into teaching extension
classes for the University of California, San Diego, which were
held in the same studio/classrooms at the now re-named La Jolla
Museum of Art. These university extension classes were crucial to
Lopez, and although she also taught at her home in Pacific Beach,
by the late 1960s she maintained the Clay Dimensions studio on Adams
Avenue to accommodate them.
While she continued
to exhibit in major national competitions and invitationals like
those held at the Wichita Art Association, the Everson Museum, Scripps
College and the California Design series at the Pasadena Museum
of Art, in San Diego Rhoda Lopez showed with the Allied Craftsmen.
As a juried member of this stellar San Diego group, Lopez had regular
opportunities to showcase her creative output at the Fine Arts Gallery
during the Allied Craftsmen’s annual Spring Exhibition. Although
she never abandoned more traditional potter’s wares, the work
she exhibited began to demonstrate a new emphasis on panels of textured
bricks and sculptural tiles for architectural installation. From
1963-64, when examples of these larger but relatively simple, grid-based
projects are first published, to 1968, Lopez would dramatically
refine this concept, ultimately producing massive and complex fountain
walls of sculptural stoneware with organic, plant and insect-inspired
motifs. Fountain walls exhibited in the late 1960s and early 1970s
were given titles like “Vandalized Nature” and “Survival
of the Root.” She worked intimately with some of San Diego’s
most progressive architects and was commissioned for projects in
private residences and public buildings. Two amazing examples of
her large-scale work in San Diego that are easily accessible can
be seen at the All Souls Episcopal Church in Point Loma and the
Unitarian Universalist Church in Hillcrest.
- Description:
Set of two very rare stoneware tiles from an early Lopez Water Wall.
These 14"x14" tiles appear in the black & white photographs
of the Water Wall in their original position, 3rd pair up from the
bottom. Both tiles are beautifully sculpted with built-up areas and
incised patterns and both tiles have holes (one has spouts) through
which water can flow, as seen in some of the photographs. The tiles,
as part of the Water Wall, were exhibited in the Spring Exhibition
of the Allied Craftsmen at the San Diego Fine Arts Gallery in 1963.
The Wall was also published in the Fine Arts Gallery Bulletin (April,
1963) and in November of that same year was exhibited again in Ceramics:
East and West, an exchange show with potters from San Diego and Yokohama,
also at the Fine Arts Gallery. In December of 1965, the Wall was exhibited
for the final time at Orr’s Gallery in San Diego as part of
the 19th Annual, Allied Craftsmen Winter Sale. A review of that show,
in which the Water Wall is mentioned as being particularly notable,
was later published in the March, 1966 issue of Craft Horizons Magazine.
The owners of Orr’s Gallery purchased the Wall at that show
and subsequently installed 3 of the 8 tiles in a wall at their home,
but have kept the remaining tiles in their private collection since
1965! So rich in history, these are the only pieces available and
they reflect an early and significant stage in the development of
Rhoda Lopez’s architectural stoneware concepts. A complete set
of documentary material, with copies of the Craft Horizons article
and the Fine Arts Gallery Bulletin as well as copies of photos from
the Orr’s Gallery show are included.
- Dimensions:
14" x 14“ each
- Condition:
On both pieces, over time, some of the built-up areas of
applied clay started to come loose from the tile itself and were re-affixed
with some kind of adhesive. One section (see pictures) about 1¾"
x 4½" has been lost altogether.
- Price:
$2,000
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