|
Born in Hollywood in 1941, ceramic artist Richard Shaw moved to the Bay Area in the sixties to study at the San Francisco Art Institute and University of California, Davis, where he received his bachelor’s and master’s of fine arts degrees. The son of an artist mother and cartoonist father, Shaw’s artistic sensibilities thrived in the rich atmosphere surrounding San Francisco, where he worked with Robert Arneson, Robert Hudson, and Ron Nagle, among others.
Shaw entered school as a painter, but quickly made ceramics his primary medium. The artist has been making and using plaster molds since the sixties, refining his technique over forty years as he explored the possibilities and limitations of clay. He has developed an astonishing array of techniques, including his perfectly cast porcelain figures, hand built and thrown clay objects and overglaze transfer decals, a method he adapted from silk-screening processes.
A unique figure in the world of contemporary ceramics, Shaw uses clay to recreate the objects of everyday life, gathering them together into ceramic sculpture that has the power to both amuse and amaze. Judith S. Schwartz, writing for the 2007 Richard Shaw: New Work catalogue, affirms that the artist “takes the mundane and enchantingly replays our memory of these objects, restoring their value while aesthetically challenging out senses. With idealistic vision, sympathetic yearning and a twinkle in his eye, Shaw enlightens and informs that which we take for granted and normally dismiss.”
Humor and irreverence play a large role in Shaw’s work, as he inserts meaning just below the beguiling surfaces of his sculptures. His exacting application of trompe l’oeil decals and glazing results in objects that, according to Suzanne Foley of the San Francisco Museum of Art, walk “the imaginative edge of the delightful and the absurd, with just the right amount of restraint to command elegance.”
Shaw has benefitted from particularly fruitful collaborations with Robert Hudson, wherein the pair of artists shared studio space as they experimented with new and unorthodox techniques. They also toyed with the functionality of ceramics, creating jars and teapots that stretch the viewer’s ability to imagine the objects in use.
Shaw skillfully combines the stuff of daily life into whimsical still lifes that appropriate mass culture while also drawing on personal experiences and memories. Michael Schwager gets to the heart of Shaw’s body of work, writing in his essay for the Richard Shaw: Four Decades of Ceramics catalogue that “it honors modesty and humility and embodies an almost Zen-like state of mindfulness, in which the artist sees beauty, simplicity, and honesty in the familiar—and often invisible—things that surround us in our everyday lives.”
Richard Shaw has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions since 1967, and his work is included in major museum collections such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
|
Awards
1988 Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts Degree, San Francisco Art Institute
1987 Visiting Artist Grant, Manufacture National De Sevres, Paris, France
1974 National Endowment for the Arts Grant
1970 National Endowment for the Arts Crafts Grant
Education
1968 M.F.A. University of California, Davis
1965 B.F.A. San Francisco Art Institute
State University of New York at Alfred
Museum Collections
Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts
The Anderson Collection at Stanford University, Stanford, California
Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona
Cantor Museum, Stanford University, Stanford, California
Contemporary Arts Center, Honolulu, Hawaii
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California
de Young Museum, San Francisco, California
Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, California
Ichon World Ceramic Center, Ichon, Korea
John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin
Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois
Levi Strauss Collection, San Francisco, California
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
Lowe Art Museum, University of Florida, Coral Gables, Florida
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Mint Museum of Craft & Design, Charlotte, North Carolina
Museum of Art and Design, New York
National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
The Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, Missouri
New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico
Nora Eccles Museum of Art, Logan, Utah
Oakland Museum, Oakland, California
Palm Beach Museum, Palm Beach, Florida
Petits Lu Collection, Paris, France
Rene Di Rosa Collection, Napa, California
Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, DC
St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri
San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, California
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California
Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden, University of Nebraska, Lincoln,
Nebraska
The Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, Shigaraki, Japan
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan
University of Miami, Miami, Florida
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico
University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, Utah
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Yale University Art Museum, New Haven, Connecticut
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2014 Richard Shaw: Ceramic Sculptures, B. Sakata Garo, Sacramento, California
2013 Richard Shaw: New Work, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco,
California
2010 Richard Shaw: Four Decades of Ceramics, Sonoma County Museum,
Sonoma, California
Richard Shaw: New Works, Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, California
2009 Richard Shaw: Still Life, Frank Lloyd Gallery, Santa Monica, California
2007 Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, California
Richard Shaw: Ceramic Sculpture, Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, California
Richard Shaw: Working Drawings from Studio Sketchbooks, Diablo Valley
College, Pleasant Hill, California
2005 Richard Shaw: Still Lifes, Museum of Los Gatos, Los Gatos, California
Richard and Martha Shaw, b. Sakata Garo, Sacramento, California
Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, California
Richard Shaw: It Ain’t Necessarily So, Davis & Cline Gallery, Ashland, Oregon
2003 Richard Shaw: New Ceramic Sculpture, Frank Lloyd Gallery, Santa Monica, California
Trompe L’oeil Ceramics, Mobilia Gallery, Cambridge, Massachusetts
2002 Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, California
2001 Frank Lloyd Gallery, Santa Monica, California
Sakata Garo, Sacramento, California
Mobilia Gallery, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Collaboration: Richard Shaw and Robert Hudson, Byron C. Cohen
Gallery for Contemporary Art; Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art,
Kansas City, Missouri
2000 Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, California
Hand Workshop Art Center, Richmond, Virgina
1999 Robert Hudson & Richard Shaw: New Ceramic Sculpture, Addison Gallery of
American Art, Andover, Massachusetts; traveled to Yerba Buena Center
for the Arts, San Francisco, California
Perimeter Gallery, Chicago, Illinois
Mobilia Gallery, Cambridge, Massachusetts
1998 Master’s Touch, Tempe Art Center, Tempe, Arizona
Richard Shaw, A Survey, George Adams Gallery, New York
Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, California
Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts
1996 Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, California
Fallkirk Cultural Center, San Rafael, California
1995 Perimeter Gallery, Chicago, Illinois
1993 Braunstein/Quay, San Francisco, California
1992 Frumkin/Adams Gallery, New York
Helander Gallery, Palm Beach, Florida
1991 Fullerton Museum Center, Fullerton, California
1990 Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, California
Frumkin/Adams Gallery, New York
Garth Clark Gallery, Los Angeles, California
Howard Yerzerski Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
Palo Alto Cultural Center, Palo Alto, California
Schneider Museum of Art Ashland, Oregon
1989 Thomas Segal Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
1988 Alan Frumkin Gallery, New York
Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, California
Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, Nevada
University of the Pacific, Stockton, California
1987 Bergstrom-Mahler Museum, Neenah, Wisconsin
The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii
Foster/White Gallery, Seattle, Washington
Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Palm Springs Desert Museum, Inc., Palm Springs, California
Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona
1986 Allan Frumkin Gallery, New York
Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, California
Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York
Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, Texas
Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, Alabama
Scottsdale Center for the Arts, Scottsdale, Arizona
1985 Asher/Faure Gallery, Los Angeles, California
1984 Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, California
Morgan Gallery, Kansas City, Missouri
1983 Madison Art Center, Madison, Wisconsin
1982 Alberta College of Art, Calgary, Canada
Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, California
Boise Gallery of Art, Boise, Idaho
Greenberg Gallery, Saint Louis, Missouri
Mendel Art Gallery and Civic Conservatory, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
1981 Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, California
Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, California
San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, California
1980 Allan Frumkin Gallery, New York
1979 Belson-Brown Gallery, Ketchum, Idaho
Michael Berger Gallery, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia
Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, California
1977 Jacqueline Anhalt Gallery, Los Angeles, California
1976 Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, California
1974 E.G. Gallery, Kansas City, Missouri
1973 Robert Hudson/Richard Shaw: Work in Porcelain, San Francisco Museum of Art
San Francisco, California
Quay Gallery, San Francisco, California
1971 Quay Gallery, San Francisco, California
1970 Quay Gallery, San Francisco, California
1969 Dilexi Gallery, San Francisco, California
1967 San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, California
|
|
|