This program is in conjunction with Small Wonders: Rethinking American Arts and Crafts, 1880-1920, on view through August 22 in the Palladian Gallery.
FREE, VIRTUAL PROGRAM
American art pottery is an overly simplistic name to describe one of the most artistically rich and diverse periods of production in the history of American ceramics. What were the main factors that helped create such a rich diversity of designs? What were the specific influences—both near and far—and how did they inspire, shape, and inform the pottery made at the turn of the 20th century? How did potters respond to or reject tradition during this unprecedented period of artistic and technological growth?
In this talk, join Adrienne Spinozzi, Assistant Curator of American Decorative Arts, The American Wing, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, who will present two dominant trends that had a profound impact on the production of art pottery at this critical time: the embrace and emulation of historical and ancient ceramics, and the contemporaneous design reform movement and art education.
Adrienne Spinozzi is the Assistant Curator of American Decorative Arts, The American Wing, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Spinozzi oversees the department’s American redware, stoneware, and art pottery collections. She joined the museum in 2007 and was part of the curatorial team responsible for the reinstallation of the Charles Engelhard Court in 2009. She is the curator of the current exhibition Shapes from Out of Nowhere: Ceramics from the Robert A. Ellison Jr. Collection (on view until August 29), featuring a selection of 20th- and 21st- century abstract and nonrepresentational ceramics. She is also organizing a 2022 exhibition of stoneware made in Edgefield District, South Carolina, with a focus on the contributions of enslaved potters. She is a graduate of Hartwick College and the Bard Graduate Center in decorative arts, design history, and material culture.