Great Pots: Contemporary Ceramics from Function to Fantasy [Hardcover]

Ulysses Grant Dietz (Author), Garth Clark (Introduction), Mary Sue Sweeney Price (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2003

In a culture that has embraced contemporary studio pottery wholeheartedly, surprisingly few books have explored the best ceramic works of the last century in a large, full-colour format. Great Pots: Contemporary Ceramics from Function to Fantasy does exactly this under the guidance of Ulysses Grant Dietz, the acclaimed curator of decorative arts at The Newark Museum. This book focuses on the museum's collection of 20th century vessels, which is legendary in curatorial and collecting circles for its age, diversity, quality and continuity. Two hundred colour images were taken specifically for this book by art photographer Richard Goodbody.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The Newark Museum's curator of decorative arts celebrates stellar ceramics in this catalogue for the museum's February-June 2003 exhibition. The book, Dietz quickly assures his readers, is neither "about art" nor a "chronological history of studio ceramics"; rather, it is dedicated to exploring "what makes great pots," from pots as canvas to pots as sculpture, and from pots that are paragons of form to those that are models of function. He divides his thoughtful analysis into three sections-"The Beautiful Pot," "The Useful Pot" and "The Wise Pot"-each amply illustrated with lush photographs. Featured items, which range from the minimalist and almost primitive to the artful and baroque, include a 1959 pot by a Short Hills, N.J., woman who decorated her piece with a design "inspired by a pattern left on a window after her dog licked it" (and for which the museum paid $12); a teapot in the shape of an ampersand that "pays serious homage" to old world ceramics while boasting a "whimsical, even kitschy approach to design"; and a hand-built stoneware piece depicting an embracing family that looks more like sculpture-or a 3-D line drawing-than traditional pottery. Museum director Mary Sue Sweeney Price notes in her foreword that the Newark Museum's curators have long acquired what some might deem commonplace objects, believing that it is these items that show the interactions between people and "material culture," while ceramics aficionados Garth Clark and Mark Del Veccio ponder "pot madness" in a pleasant introduction. This careful volume is a deserving labor of both love and intelligence.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Dietz's gloriously illustrated book celebrates the "ordinariness" of ceramics created from 1940 onward by showcasing pottery that "expresses the way in which objects and everyday life interact in human culture." Well-known artists such as Maija Grotell, Bernard Leach, Rose Gonzales, Beatrice Wood, Glen Lukens, Michael Cardew, Peter Voulkos, and Hans Coper are on hand, but much of the work displayed and considered comes from relatively unknown pottery artists whose work exhibits the qualities of "beauty, utility and wisdom." Dietz, curator of decorative arts at the Newark Museum, discusses what he terms the beautiful pot, the classic pot, the painterly pot, the sculptural pot, the useful pot, the narrative pot, the worshipful pot, and the impossible pot in his illuminating text, and teapots, covered and open vessels, small pots, vases, and bottles are also included in this outstanding overview. Lauren Roberts
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Guild Publishing (February 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1893164187
• ISBN-13: 978-1893164185
• Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 9.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,044,068 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Pots: Contemporary Ceramics from Function to Fantasy, March 10, 2003

By 

Gary Berger (Maplewood, New Jersey United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Great Pots: Contemporary Ceramics from Function to Fantasy (Hardcover)

This is the most beautiful book on studio ceramics ever produced! Not only that, it focuses on a collection that dates back two generations, but which most people have never seen published anywhere else. Of course the pictures and the design of this book make it worthy of any coffee table--but it's far more than that. The photographs are wonderful, but the texts (one long and one short essay) are both readable and informative. Perhaps the most "radical" aspect of this book is its point of view. There is no judgmental hierarchy about whether one potter's work is "more art" than another's. In fact, the author purports not to be talking about art at all. But it is all about art, in spite of those protests to the contrary. It shows how the traditionalist potters of the late 1930s worked their way into being modernists--and how they took their homage to Asia with them on that journey. The great radicals of the late 1950s--Voulkos, Autio, Price--are all given their due, but this break from tradtionalist potting is not seen as something inherently "better," nor is it portrayed as the be-all and end-all of studio ceramic history. Perhaps even more interesting is the fact that the great Japanese studio potters, and the great Native American studio potters, are given the same sort of respect and careful consideration as the European and American potters that most collectors today are familiar with.

The book is broadly divided into three thematic sections: the Beautiful Pot, the Useful Pot, and the Wise Pot. Each of these is then subdivided, by means of an easily flowing narrative, into about a dozen smaller sections. It is a well-written and lucid account of how the humble pot came to be great art, in spite of the art world and all its prejudice.

For anyone who likes pottery--even the plain old hand-made coffee mug from the local craft fair--this book will tell a great story about why people love to work with clay, and all the ways they come to express themselves with clay.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pots of all shapes and all colors, and ranging in design, July 19, 2003

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Great Pots: Contemporary Ceramics from Function to Fantasy (Hardcover)

Great Pots: Contemporary Ceramics From Function To Fantasy by Ulysses Grant Dietz (Curator of Decorative Arts, The Newark Museum) is an eye-catching full-sized artbook showcasing studio ceramics ranging from the late 1930s down to the modern day. American, European, Asian, African, and Native American pots of all shapes and all colors, and ranging in design from elegant simplicity, to brilliant color, to intricate fine detail, are pictured on virtually every page by full-color photographs and accompanied by an extensive text commentary. Great Pots is very strongly recommended speciality artbook which would prove a seminal contribution to 20th Century Art History reference collections in general, and informative reading for either amateur or professional potters in particular.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Pots, Great Book, June 9, 2004

By 

"youvegottabekiddingme" (Ridgefield, CT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Great Pots: Contemporary Ceramics from Function to Fantasy (Hardcover)

This book is beautiful. What a shame the show was only a temporary exhibition at the Newark Museum. It has a fabulous variety of work from artists around the globe. Buy it while you still can!