Garth Clark is an art critic, art historian, curator, gallerist, and art dealer from
Pretoria, South Africa
Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa.
Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends eastward into the foothi ...
.
Clark is a writer and commentator on modern and contemporary ceramic art and a critic of the craft movement. For twenty-seven years, Clark and his partner Mark Del Vecchio owned and operated Garth Clark Gallery in New York City, with other locations across the country and the world. Clark lives in
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe ( ; , Spanish for 'Holy Faith'; tew, Oghá P'o'oge, Tewa for 'white shell water place'; tiw, Hulp'ó'ona, label=Tiwa language, Northern Tiwa; nv, Yootó, Navajo for 'bead + water place') is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. ...
where he is the founding Editor-in-Chief of CFile Foundation's online journal and publishing projects.
Early life
Garth Clark discovered his interest in ceramic arts while he was living in South Africa. He received his master's degree from the Royal College of Art, London, in modern ceramic history, and became an expert in British pottery.
Garth Clark Gallery
Garth Clark Gallery, co-founded and co-operated by Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio, began its life on
Wilshire Boulevard
Wilshire Boulevard is a prominent boulevard in the Los Angeles area of Southern California, extending from Ocean Avenue in the city of Santa Monica east to Grand Avenue in the Financial District of downtown Los Angeles. One of the principal ...
in Los Angeles in 1981 with the inaugural exhibition, ''
Beatrice Wood: A Very Private View''. At their galleries in LA, Manhattan, Kansas City, and briefly London combined, Clark and Del Vecchio have been responsible for over 500 exhibitions (solo, group, theme, historical) over a period of 27 years. The gallery served as a resource for modern and contemporary ceramic art during its existence, serving an international audience of museums and collectors.
The gallery accelerated, sparked, and defined the careers of some artists in the field including
Akio Takamori
Akio Takamori (1950 – January 11, 2017) was a Japanese-American ceramic sculptor and was a faculty member at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington.
Biography
Takamori was born in Nobeoka, Miyazaki, Japan in 1950 October 11. Th ...
,
Ron Nagle
Ron Nagle (born February 21, 1939) is an American sculptor, musician and songwriter. He is known for small-scale, refined sculptures of great detail and compelling color.
Nagle lives and works in San Francisco, California.
Life
Born in San Fr ...
,
Ruth Duckworth,
Beth Cavener
Beth Cavener, also known as Beth Cavener Stichter, is an American artist based out of Montana. A classically trained sculptor, her process involves building complex metal armatures to support massive amounts of clay. Cavener is best known for her ...
,
Lucio Fontana
Lucio Fontana (; 19 February 1899 – 7 September 1968) was an Argentine-Italian painter, sculptor and theorist. He is mostly known as the founder of Spatialism.
Early life
Born in Rosario, to Italian immigrant parents, he was t ...
,
Ralph Bacerra
Ralph Bacerra (1938, Garden Grove, California - June 10, 2008) was a ceramic artist and career educator. He lived and worked in Los Angeles, California.
From 1959 to 1961, Bacerra was a student at Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, where he ...
, Carlo Zauli,
Christine Nofchissey McHorse
Christine McHorse (December 21, 1948 – February 17, 2021), also known as Christine Nofchissey McHorse, was a Navajo Pottery, ceramic artist from Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Early life and education
Born Christine Nofchissey on December 21, 1949, in ...
and more.
Curator
Among the museum exhibitions he has curated internationally are ''A Century of Ceramics in the United States'', ''
Hans Coper
Hans Coper (8 April 1920 – 16 June 1981), was an influential German-born British studio potter. His work is often coupled with that of Lucie Rie due to their close association, even though their best known work differs dramatically, with R ...
in American Collections, Free Spirit: The New Native American Potter,'' and ''
The Artful Teapot.''
Writer
Clark has written, edited and contributed to over sixty books on ceramic art and authored over two hundred essays, reviews, and monographs. Irving Blum, a contemporary art dealer called Clark, "ceramics’ great clarifier."
Books
* 2012 ''Dark Light: The Ceramics of Christine Nofchissey McHorse''. Albuquerque: Fresco Fine Art Publications, llc.
** ''Shifting Paradigns in Contemporary Ceramics: The Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio Collection. New Haven and London:'' Museum of Fine Arts of Houston and Yale University Press.
* 2008 ''How Envy Killed the Crafts Movement: An Autopsy in Two Parts''. Portland: Museum of Contemporary Craft and Pacific Northwest College of Art.
* 2003 ''Richard Slee''. London: Lund Humphries.
** ''Shards: Garth Clark on Ceramic Art''. New York: D.A.P.
* 2001 ''The Artful Teapot''. London: Thames and Hudson.
** ''Gilded Vessel, The Lustrous Art and Life of Beatrice Wood''. Madison, WI: Guild Publishing.
* 1999 ''Alev Ebuzziya Siesbye.'' Istanbul: Kale.
* 1995 ''The Potter's Art: A Complete History of Pottery in Britain.'' London: Phaidon Press.
* 1990 ''The Book of Cups.'' New York: Abbeville Press.
* 1989 ''The Eccentric Teapot.'' New York: Abbeville Press.
* 1989 ''The Mad Potter of Biloxi – The Art & Life of George E. Ohr.'' New York: Abbeville Press.
* 1987 ''American Ceramics: 1876 to the Present.'' New York: Abbeville Press.
* 1986 ''American Potters Today'', (with Oliver Watson). London: Victoria and Albert Museum.
* 1981 ''American Potters: The Work of 20 Modern Masters''. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications.
* 1979 ''A Century of Ceramics in the United States 1878-1978.'' New York: Abbeville Press.
* 1976 ''Michael Cardew: A Portrait.'' London: Kodansha.
* 1974 ''Potters of Southern Africa'' (with Lynne Wagner). Cape Town: G. Struik and Co.
Books as editor
* 1982 ''Ceramic Millennium: Critical Writings on Ceramic History, Theory and Art:'' Halifax: NSCAD Press
* 1982 ''Ceramics and Modernism: The Response of Artist, Craftsman, Designer and Architect''. Los Angeles.
* 1979 ''Transactions of the Ceramics Symposium 1979''. Los Angeles. Institute for Ceramic History.
* 1978 ''Ceramic Art: Comment and Review 1882-1977.'' New York: E.P. Dutton.
Honors and achievements
In 2005, Clark received the
College Art Association
The College Art Association of America (CAA) is the principal organization in the United States for professionals in the visual arts, from students to art historians to emeritus faculty. Founded in 1911, it "promotes these arts and their understa ...
's Mather Award for distinguished achievement in art journalism (previously awarded to
Robert Hughes at ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' and
Roberta Smith
Roberta Smith (born 1948) is co-chief art critic of ''The New York Times'' and a lecturer on contemporary art. She is the first woman to hold that position.
Early life
Born in 1948 in New York City and raised in Lawrence, Kansas. Smith studied at ...
at the ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', amongst others) for his anthology ''Shards: Garth Clark on Ceramic Art''.
In addition, Clark has received lifetime achievements awards from several institutions, including
Museum of Art and Design
The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), based in Manhattan, New York City, collects, displays, and interprets objects that document contemporary and historic innovation in craft, art, and design. In its exhibitions and educational programs, the mus ...
New York,
National Council on Education for the Ceramics Arts, Friends of Contemporary Ceramics, Immigration Law Foundation, and the National Service to the Arts Award, Anderson Ranch, Aspen.
He has been awarded honorary doctorates from
Staffordshire University
, mottoeng = Dare to know
, type = Public
, endowment = £70 million (2015)
, administrative_staff = 1,375
, chancellor = Francis Fitzherbert, 15th Baron Stafford
, vice_chancellor = Professor Martin Jones
, ...
in England and
Kansas City Art Institute
The Kansas City Art Institute (KCAI) is a private art school in Kansas City, Missouri. The college was founded in 1885 and is an accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design and Higher Learning Commission. It has approxi ...
in Missouri, USA.
In 1998, he was made a Fellow of the
Royal College of Art
The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...
, London and a member of the Court at the school's 100th Convocation (his alma mater).
As far as book awards, Clark has received an "Art Book of the Year" Award from the Art Libraries Society of America, the Mather Award (see above) and a bronze medal for of ''Ceramic Millennium'' from the Independent Publishers Association.
References
{{Reflist
Ceramic art dealers
American art dealers
People from Pretoria
South African emigrants to the United States
South African curators