First comprehensive exhibition of studio potter John Glick’s work opens at Cranbrook Art Museum | ArtDaily

June 21, 2016

by Staff, artdaily.org

BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MICH.– Cranbrook Art Museum announces the opening of our new exhibition, John Glick: A Legacy in Clay, which highlights the illustrious career of the ceramist and 1962 graduate of Cranbrook Academy of Art. The exhibition opened on June 18 and run through March 12, 2017.

This is the first major exhibition to survey the immense range of ceramic vessels, tableware, and sculpture that has made Glick one of today’s premiere figures in American studio pottery. Glick operated his Plum Tree Pottery studio in Farmington Hills, Michigan, for 50 years. During this time, he remained committed to the art and craft of functional vessels and their incorporation into the rituals of daily life. Glick has recently retired and prepares to close his studio in anticipation of a move to California.

John Glick: A Legacy in Clay includes more than 200 pieces representing all phases of Glick’s work, from the early vessels and tableware dating to Glick’s time as student at Cranbrook Academy of Art, to his conceptual ceramic sculptures from the last decades.

“I’ve spent the past two years working with John on this exhibition, and I’ve found one of his most remarkable qualities to be his ability to temper his extreme work ethic and creative diligence with an unquenchable thirst for play and experimentation in the studio,” says Shelley Selim, the Jeanne and Ralph Graham Assistant Curator at Cranbrook Art Museum, and curator of this exhibition. “His prolific output over a fifty-year career is rooted in an earnestness and sincerity that is palpable in the character of his work. Working with innumerable combinations of clay, slips, glazes, tools, and forms persistently brought him immense joy, and his intention was always to infuse the lives of the thousands who own his pottery with the same pleasure and wonder he experienced in the act of making. His work enhances and celebrates everyday rituals, and compels the users to relish the familiar objects that populate our daily routines.”

The exhibition and accompanying catalogue are part of the John Glick Legacy Project, which also encompasses the placement of the ceramist’s most important works in public museum collections around the nation. The catalogue includes essays by Exhibition Curator Shelley Selim, Independent Curator Jo Lauria, and Ezra Shales, Associate Professor at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. It is available for purchase at the Museum front desk.