"Surviving ceramic vessels buried in tombs, caves, and the earth around the world testify to the earliest human creative activity. By studying ceramics historians uncover the complex ways that societies organized and sustained themselves, as well as how they interacted with other cultures. Today the ceramic arts remain a vibrant artistic medium, as contemporary artists engage with this material history to sustain their own heritage practices, while also shaping new histories from clay. From pre-Columbian Andean tombs to contemporary African sculpture, Ceramic Art considers ceramics as an artistic medium that uniquely records and expresses our individual and collective worlds across cultures. With an introduction and conclusion written by Sequoia Miller, the chief curator at the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art in Toronto and a practicing ceramic artist, this volume features three main essays. The first, by art historian Margaret Graves, provides an overview of different ceramic histories and the ways regional and global circulation have impacted them; the second, by conservator Victoria Parry, focuses on the challenges of preserving these artworks and artifacts; and the third, by studio potter Magdalene Odundo, examines the art form from the point of view of the contemporary practitioner. These essays are followed by three case studies, organized chronologically from ancient to contemporary, and spanning centuries and continents in range, that put objects in conversation with one another in innovative, cross-disciplinary ways. Ceramic Art is the inaugural title in our new series ART/WORK. Responding to the latest trends in the field, the ART/WORK series provides innovative narratives that change how art history as a discipline is imagined"--

Presents over 20 ceramic artists and the techniques they used to create innovative forming, unusual surfaces, spectacular glazing and more.

A fascinating exploration of the rich artistic heritage and beauty of Casas Grandes ceramics

Widely considered to be the most comprehensive introduction to ceramics available, this book contains numerous step-by-step illustrations of various ceramic techniques to guide the beginner as well as inspirational ceramic pieces from contemporary potters from around the world. For the more experienced ceramist, there is a wealth of technical detail on things like glaze formulas and temperature conversions which make the book an ideal reference. To quote one review: ...I am a studio potter and would not be without it. The fourth edition has been updated to include profiles of key ceramists who have influenced the field, new material on marketing ceramics including using the internet, more on the use of computers, added coverage of paperclays, using gold and alternative glazes.

"Full of surprises [and] evocative." The Spectator "Passionately written." Apollo "An extraordinary accomplishment." Edmund de Waal "Monumental." Times Literary Supplement "An epic reshaping of ceramic art." Crafts "An important book." The Arts Society Magazine In his major new history, Paul Greenhalgh tells the story of ceramics as a story of human civilisation, from the Ancient Greeks to the present day. As a core craft technology, pottery has underpinned domesticity, business, religion, recreation, architecture, and art for millennia. Indeed, the history of ceramics parallels the development of human society. This fascinating and very human history traces the story of ceramic art and industry from the Ancient Greeks to the Romans and the medieval world; Islamic ceramic cultures and their influence on the Italian Renaissance; Chinese and European porcelain production; modernity and Art Nouveau; the rise of the studio potter, Art Deco, International Style and Mid-Century Modern, and finally, the contemporary explosion of ceramic making and the postmodern potter. Interwoven in this journey through time and place is the story of the pots themselves, the culture of the ceramics, and their character and meaning. Ceramics have had a presence in virtually every country and historical period, and have worked as a commodity servicing every social class. They are omnipresent: a ubiquitous art. Ceramic culture is a clear, unique, definable thing, and has an internal logic that holds it together through millennia. Hence ceramics is the most peculiar and extraordinary of all the arts. At once cheap, expensive, elite, plebeian, high-tech, low-tech, exotic, eccentric, comic, tragic, spiritual, and secular, it has revealed itself to be as fluid as the mud it is made from. Ceramics are the very stuff of how civilized life was, and is, led. This then is the story of human society's most surprising core causes and effects.

After years in the doldrums, there has been a resurgence of interest in figurative ceramics. In this book, a well-known ceramic artist looks over the past 25 years and selects 100 of the most important artists working with ceramic figures.