Tribute Honors Beatrice Wood at Age 104

To celebrate the 104th birthday of legendary artist Beatrice Wood, the American Craft Museum in New York City has organized a comprehensive restrospective of her work. Beatrice Wood: A Centennial Tribute encompasses eight decades of Wood's career.

The exhibit opened on March 4 and will run until June 8. It will travel to Santa Barbara, Calif. in the fall, and is expected to travel thereafter to two other national venues. A living legend, Beatrice Wood is famous for her copper and gold luster glazed ceramics.

She was a well-known member of the New York Dada Circle, which included such figures as Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia and Man Ray. Many believe that the love triangle that developed among Wood, Duchamp and French Diplomat Henri-Pierre Roché formed the basis of Roché's novel, Jules and Jim, which was later made into the celebrated film by François Truffaut.

The exhibit is comprised of over 180 examples of her ceramic vessels, figurative ceramic sculpture, drawings, prints and paintings -- with a focus on her ceramic production.

Beatrice Wood: A Centennial Tribute has been curated by Francis M. Naumann, an art historian who specializes in Dada studies and early twentieth century American art. Dr. Naumann most recently curated the exhibition Making Mischief: Dada Invades New York at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

The tribute is part of the American Craft Museum's Master Artist series, following exhibitions organized by the Museum on George Nakashima (1989), Lenore Tawney (1990) and Gertrude and Otto Natzler (1993).

Designated a Living Treasure by the state of California, Wood maintains a rigorous work schedule at her California home and studio. Born in San Francisco in 1893, Wood broke rank with social and familial expectations and opted for a career as an actress in pre-World War I Paris. Her career as a visual artist began in Paris when she enrolled in drawing classes in 1910, at age 17. At the outbreak of World War I, she left Paris for New York, where, in 1916, she met Marcel Duchamp. Duchamp encouraged Wood to continue to draw. He also introduced her to Louise and Walter Arensberg, noted early collectors of modern art.

With Duchamp, the Arensbergs, and Roché, Wood helped organize the Society of Independent Artists, which held its first annual exhibition in New York in 1917. Wood submitted two works to the show, both of which are included in the exhibition (one is a replica made by the artist in 1976).

Wood did not begin her career in ceramics until 1933, at the age of 40. By fusing experimental glazes with simple, universal forms, Wood's iridescent luster vessels soon established her international reputation. Wood's ceramics differ from most of the luster tradition that preceded her. Earlier, luster had primarily been used for surface decoration of forms that had already been glazed. Wood on the other hand, worked chiefly with in-glaze luster, produced during a single glaze firing, bringing to it her own sensibility of theatricality and adventurousness.

Wood also applied her drawing ability to ceramics, creating decorative plates, tiles, as well as figurative ceramic sculpture, which she calls "sophisticated primitives." These works combine her love for folk crafts from many cultures with warmly humorous observations of human nature. A representation of these works is included in the exhibition.