Richard Shaw (artist)

Richard Shaw (born 1941 in Los Angeles, California, United States) is an American ceramicist and professor known for his trompe-l'œil (French for "fool the eye") style. A term often associated with paintings, referring to the illusion that a two-dimensional surface is three-dimensional. In Shaw's work, it refers to his replication of everyday objects (such as tin cans, playing cards, and cutlery) in porcelain. He then glazes these components and groups them in unexpected and even jarring combinations. Interested in how objects can reflect a person or identity, Shaw poses questions regarding the relationship between appearances and reality.

Education and career

The child of an artist mother and a Walt Disney cartoonist/animator father, Shaw was surrounded by art from a young age. Though he is now known for his work with ceramics, he initially planned on becoming a painter. For the last three years of high school, he attended Desert Sun School, located in the San Jacinto Mountains – a private school which had, according to Shaw, an environment that fostered creativity in its students. Still set on becoming a painter, Shaw then briefly attended Orange Coast College. At Orange Coast, he met Martha, a painter who would become his wife, and he first began to work with ceramics.

Following his time at Orange Coast College, Shaw attended the San Francisco Art Institute. He identifies 1963 as the year during which he began seriously working with ceramics and pottery, citing professors Ron Nagle, Jim Melchert, Peter Voulkos, and John Mason as inspiring figures during his time at the Institute. From Voulkos and Mason – who Shaw credits with "revolutionizing" the ceramics scene in the later twentieth century – he learned to experiment with new kiln firing techniques. The trend in the artistic ceramics world (as opposed to the "commercial pottery" world) had been to create high-fire pieces – pieces fired at higher temperatures, which maximized durability. However, in 1965, Shaw's work was displayed in the Museum of Arts and Design (previously the Museum of Contemporary Crafts) in New York, and many of his pieces there were low-fire, which resulted in their having a different surface finish than traditional high-fire pieces.

In 1965, Shaw earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from San Francisco Art Institute, after which he attended the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University for a semester, about which he has said, "Where else do you go if you're into ceramics?" He returned to California to teach at the San Francisco Art Institute from 1966–1987. While teaching at the Institute, he also attended the University of California, Davis, earning his Master of Fine Arts in 1968. Shaw was Professor of Ceramics at the University of California, Berkeley from 1987 to 2021, and he currently lives in Fairfax, CA with his wife Martha.

Awards
Shaw has received the following awards:

 2000: Marin Arts Council Board Award, San Rafael, California
 1998: Shigaraki Cultural Ceramic Park, Shigaraki, Japan
 1998: Artist in Residence, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts
 1996: Annual Life Member Award, Falkirk Arts Center, San Rafael, California
 1988: Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts Degree, San Francisco Art Institute
 1987: Visiting Artist Grant, Atelier Experimental de Recherche et de Création, Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres, Paris, France
 1974: National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
 1971: National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship

Museum collections
Shaw is represented in the following museum collections:

 Museum of Arts and Design, New York, New York
 National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
 Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, California
 Racine Art Museum, Racine, Wisconsin
 Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California
 Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
 Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, Utah
 De Young Museum, San Francisco, CA

Selected solo exhibitions
Shaw's solo exhibitions around the United States include:

 2014: Richard Shaw: Ceramic Sculptures, B. Sakata Garo, Sacramento, California
 2010: Richard Shaw: Four Decades of Ceramics, Sonoma County Museum, Santa Rosa, California
 2007: Richard Shaw: Working Drawings from Studio Sketchbooks, Diablo Valley College, Pleasant Hill, California
 2003: Trompe l'Oeil Ceramics, Mobilia Gallery, Cambridge, Massachusetts
 1998: Master's Touch, Tempe Art Center, Tempe, Arizona
 1990: Palo Alto Cultural Center, Palo Alto, California
 1987: The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii
 1983: Madison Art Center, Madison, Wisconsin
 1979: Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, California

Selected group exhibitions
Shaw's work has been included in the following group exhibitions around the United States:
 2017: Variations on a Theme: Teapots from RAM's Collection, Racine Art Museum, Racine, Wisconsin
 2016: Order & Nature, Anglim Gilbert Gallery, San Francisco, California
 2013: New Blue and White: Contemporary Art and Design, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Boston, Massachusetts
 2013: Top 10 at 10: Favorites from RAM's Collection, Racine Art Museum, Racine, Wisconsin
 2012: Crafting Modernism, Midcentury American Art and Craft, Museum of Art and Design, New York, New York
 2012: Indelibly Yours: Smith Anderson Editions and the Tattoo Project, de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara, California
 2012: Invite and Ignite: the 25th Exhibitions Anniversary and Symposium, New Castle, Maine
 2011: Not So Still Life, Racine Art Museum, Racine, Wisconsin
 2007: The Reality of Things: Trompe l'Oeil in America, Vero Beach Museum, Vero Beach, Florida
 2005: I Hope You Learned Your Lesson, Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, Sonoma, California
 2004: Masters of Illusion: 150 Years of Trompe l'Oeil in America, Kresge Art Museum, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan
 2002: Something, Anything, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, New York
 2000: Expanded Visions, Bayly Art Museum, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia
 1995: Altered and Irrational, Selected Works from the Permanent Collection, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York
 1994: The Ritual Vessel, Perimeter Gallery, Chicago, Illinois

References

1941 births
Living people
New York State College of Ceramics alumni
San Francisco Art Institute alumni
University of California, Davis alumni
San Francisco Art Institute faculty
Artists from Los Angeles
Nut artists
Trompe-l'œil artists