Gio Ponti: Artist, Architect, Writer, Designer, and Visionary

The Georgia Museum of Art recently acquired four plates and a platter designed by Gio Ponti (1891–1979) a famous Milanese architect and designer. Ponti worked as the artistic director and designer for the Florentine firm Richard-Ginori, which manufactured ceramics, from 1923 to 1938: this served as the beginning of his long career designing other household and decorative items, such as furniture, glassware and silverware. He also designed apartment buildings, palazzos and public buildings of all types, including business towers and university buildings. He was the editor and founder of both Domus and Stile magazines, dedicated to Italian architecture and the decorative arts, and he served as professor of architecture at Politecnico di Milano University for 25 years.

Typical of Italian decorative arts in the 1920s and 1930s, Ponti appears to have been inspired by ancient classical artwork, in this case Etruscan. Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime encouraged a conscious return to Italy’s ancient roots, seeking to instill in all Italians a pride in their heritage and a belief that they were destined to rebuild the ancient Roman Empire. Although Ponti engaged with the Fascist regime and shared its appreciation for classical culture, he was essentially apolitical.

Ponti also appears to have been inspired by scenes from contemporary life, as the charming circus figures on these platters show. Later in his career, he became known for his sleek, modern designs, such as his Superleggera furniture and the Pirelli Tower. An artist and visionary of extraordinary versatility, Ponti’s life and work will be highlighted in an upcoming summer 2017 exhibition at the Georgia Museum of Art, which will focus on his furniture design.

For more information about Gio Ponti and his art: www.gioponti.com.

Rebecca Stapleford
Publications Intern

RIP Toshiko Takaezu

We just learned, a bit late, of the death of Toshiko Takaezu, an important ceramicist represented in our collection who passed away March 9. UNC Press's blog has a nice remembrance of her by Peter Held, editor of her book "The Art of Toshiko Takaezu: In the Language of Silence," and the New York Times ran its obituary Saturday, which includes the following paragraphs:

Early in her career she made traditional vessels but in the late 1950s, strongly influenced by the Finnish ceramist Maija Grotell, she embraced the notion of ceramic pieces as artworks meant to be seen rather than used. She closed off the top of her vessels, leaving a vestigial nipple-like opening and creating, in effect, a clay canvas for glazing of all kinds: brushing, dripping, pouring and dipping.

She became known for the squat balls she called moon pots; the vertical “closed forms,” which grew sharply in height in the 1990s; and thin ceramic trunks inspired by the scorched trees she had seen along the Devastation Trail in Hawaii’s Volcanoes National Park. At times Ms. Takaezu exhibited the moon pots in hammocks, an allusion to her method of drying the pots in nets. She also cast bronze bells and wove rugs.

Strongly influenced by her study of Zen Buddhism, she regarded her ceramic work as an outgrowth of nature and seamlessly interconnected with the rest of her life. “I see no difference between making pots, cooking and growing vegetables,” she was fond of saying. Indeed, she often used her kilns to bake chicken in clay, and dry mushrooms, apples and zucchinis.

The Georgia Museum of Art has one of its wall cases in the hallway of the new wing devoted to her work (not including the pot above), which we encourage you to come see.

New Show at Trace Gallery

Trace Gallery’s next show will feature artists Michaelene Walsh and Debbie Kupinsky. Beginning with an opening reception on November 12, from 7 to 9 p.m., this exhibition will run through December 3.

Michaelene Walsh is a ceramic artist and associate professor of art at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. She draws inspiration from poetry, striving to “bring seemingly disparate, ordinary, or unremarkable images together to form something memorable,” much like a poet does with words.

Debbie Kupinsky works with the figure. She is ultimately interested in “how we reconcile the beauty and innocence in the world with the inevitable loss of innocence.” To symbolize this, Kupinsky chooses to incorporate “objects of nostalgia” such as thimbles, teacups, doll parts and pillboxes.

Trace Gallery is located in Athens at 160 Tracy St., in the Chase Park Warehouses. The gallery is open Thursday through Saturday, 2 to 6 p.m.

Ceramics Mystery

There's a very cool ceramics show in the gallery at the end of the righthand hallway of the Visual Arts Building on Jackson Street, all of which appears to be by a single artist. No signage and no labels means we don't know who it is, but it's interesting stuff!



Ah-ha! The artists are Kyungmin Park and Robin Reif, who dropped off a postcard last week.

Earl McCutchen Estate Sale

In addition to all the other fabulous art events going on this weekend, we just heard about another one, the estate sale of the late Earl McCutchen. Here's the info:

You are cordially invited to attend the exhibition and sale of the "private collection" of the late Earl McCutchen, Distingueshed Professor of Art at the University of Georgia. His works in ceramics and techniques in pottery and glass distiguished him as one of the leading teachers and artists in the country.

Proceeds from this sale will go to the Kuzmicki-McCutchen Scholarship Fund at UGA. Gilbert Milner will hold the sale as follows:

Thursday, April 8, 5 pm-8 pm
Friday, April 9, 9 am-5 pm
Saturday, April 10, 9 am-1 pm

131 Princeton Mill Road
(off South Lumpkin St.)

In addition to the wonderful art collection:
oriental rugs
lamps
almost new side by side refrigerator
Wyntone execise bike
Cast Iron Loveseats
Mid-Century modern sofas and tables, and lots of other furnishings.

To learn more about McCutchen's work, check out this New Georgia Encyclopedia article on him.

Art Around Athens

Julie Phillips beat us to the punch on tonight's visiting artist lecture at the Lamar Dodd School of Art by Piper Shepard, an incredible fiber artist. It's at 5:30 p.m. in room S151 of the Dodd.

Also, ceramicist Kevin Snipes has started a 10-day residency on campus. He's in the middle of a workshop that began this morning at 9 a.m. and will be doing another one tomorrow from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the ceramics studio downstairs from our offices, plus giving a lecture on Thursday, February 25, at 5 p.m. in room S150 of the Dodd.

Snipes is currently an Artist-in-Residence at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, a public, nonprofit educational institution founded in 1951 by brick maker Archie Bray outside of Helena, Montana. He holds a BFA in Ceramics and Drawing from the Cleveland Institute of Art and an MFA from the University of Florida. Snipes’ work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including in Jingdezhen, China.

Both the workshops and the lecture are free and open to the public.

Ceramics Building due to open in the fall

At the moment, the ceramics people are still downstairs from us, in the Visual Arts Building on North Campus, but just because we'll be moving back to our regular HQ at some point within the year (dates are yet to be set) doesn't mean we'll be farther away from them. In fact, the art school is working on a new building for them as well, which will be right around the corner from both the big Dodd building and the new GMOA and is pictured above. According to the news on the LDSOA's site, Menefee + Winer is the architectural firm, and the 15,000-square-foot building is expected to be finished in the fall of this year, having begin construction in January. East Campus may be getting crowded, especially with the new parking deck (which will provide ample room for GMOA's events, as well as for those at the Performing Arts Center, and is literally a stone's throw away) that's just gone up, but it'll be great to have all us arty folk in one location. Maybe we'll still be able to smell it when they fire up the kilns.

Pottery and Jewelry Sale

Tuesday, December 1, and Wednesday, December 2, the Ceramics Student Organization is hosting a Pre-Holiday Pottery Sale in the first-floor foyer of the Lamar Dodd School of Art. This two-day sale is from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. both days and features small sculptures, flowerpots, jewelry, housewares and more with prices ranging from $8 to $100. For more information contact tsaupe at uga.edu.

Also, Tuesday, December 1, through Thursday, December 3, Phi Beata Heata, the jewelry and metals student organization, is sponsoring a student jewelry sale. The sale will be located with the Pre-Holiday Pottery Sale in the first-floor foyer of the Lamar Dodd School of Art on the 1st and 2nd, and the second floor of the Student Learning Center on the 3rd, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. all three days.

Art Around Athens (and farther...)

If you happen to be in the Marietta, Ga., area tomorrow (Friday, Oct. 16), our friend Jack Kehoe (designer of the Smitty award for the GMOA Volunteer of the Year) is having an opening reception for the exhibition The Mystery of Marble at dK Gallery on the Square from 6 to 8 p.m. The email says, "Over 30 sculptures and paintings from the world renowned sculptor,
artist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Georgia will be available for the first time in a gallery venue." Plus jazz!

There's also a fabulous pottery sale being put on by the UGA Ceramics department in the hallway outside our offices (and their classrooms) in the Visual Arts Building. Pretty much everyone in our office has bought something, and there's a tremendous range of stuff out there.

Edit: Whoops! We almost forgot about Mike Kemling's lecture as part of the VCC at the Lamar Dodd School of Art this evening (at 5 p.m. in the big auditorium). Kemling will deliver the lecture "Il scultore fiorentino: Giuliano Bugiardini's portrait of Michelangelo," which proposes that, "Much more than an attempt to record Michelangelo’s physical appearance, the portrait serves as key instrument in the fashioning of the sculptor’s identity by including the white turban, an attribute commonly found in the portraits of the 15th-century Florentine artist Donatello. The portrait was completed during the period when Michelangelo accepted the commission for the Medici tombs in the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo; a project that would have solidified Michelangelo as the leader of Florentine sculptors. In the absence of these works, Bugiardini’s portrait sought to crown Michelangelo with the turban of Donatello, emphasizing the notion that Michelangelo was the heir apparent to the traditions of sculpture in Florence."